EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
ESSAYS AND
BELLES LETTRES
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING
AND PERSPECTIVE
THE PUBLISHERS OF SFS^T^l^^S
LlB%tA<R^T WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND
FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST
OF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED
VOLUMES TO BE COMPRISED UNDER
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THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY
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FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
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POETRY & DRAMA
BIOGRAPHY
REFERENCE
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«P
■sic
IN FOUR STYLES OF BINDING : CLOTH,
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ROUND CORNERS, GILT TOP; LIBRARY
BINDING IN CLOTH, & QUARTER PIGSKIN
London : J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
^ELEMENTS
^DRAWING
V ^PERSPECTIVE
BY JOHN*f#
RUSKIN*
LONDON-PUBLISHED
by J-M-DENT Sr-SONS-IF
AND IN NEW YORK
BYE-P* DUTTON^CO
IV c
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First Issue of this Editiov
Reprinted
1907
1912
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APR 2 0 19
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1 c 6 ? 5 ? 9
INTRODUCTION
The exhibition of Ruskin's drawings in New Bond Street,
this spring of 1907, has given us what must be our last
opportunity of seeing his original work in any complete
form. The collection there shown before its dispersal to
the ends of the earth, would, if it could have been kept on
view in some permanent Ruskin gallery, be the best accom-
paniment of the two handbooks coupled in this volume.
But that is not to be; and the only resource left to the
writer who, fresh from its record, would turn it to account m
their fuller illustration, is to point to the many reproductions
of some of the finest of those drawings, to be had in the
various editions of his works, down to the final Library
Edition which is now being published.
At that exhibition, the practice and the materials, the
familiar David-Roberts grey paper, the Harding pencil effects,
the washes and colours, cold or glowing, that marked Ruskin
the artist and master of drawing, were so arranged as to
recall him almost in the very act. The portraits too,— that
of himself bv Richmond at the end of the room, and that by
himself, the beautiful and sensitive pencil drawing of Miss
Rose La Touche, in particular,— added remarkably to the
biographical actuality of these remains. Indeed their effect,
illustrating and tracing as they did his growing command
of his art, from stage to stage of his development, was that
of his whole history told in pictures. They showed how he
began to imitate, stroke for stroke, line for line, Cruikshank's
etchings for Grimm's Tales, of which he expressly speaks in
his "Elements of Drawing,'' and how he drew in 1835 under
Prouts influence, or how his hand strengthened in 1845 and
1846, when he was looking for Turner effects in Switzerland,
or making those noble mountain-studies which were repro-
duced in the volumes of " Modern Painters." Indeed there
is passage after passage in the first of the two coupled
handbooks republished in this volume, which might be
given its direct application in those drawings ; while they
most luminously contributed as no written memoirs could
do, to our knowledge of Ruskin in his long student's days ;
for when, it may be said, was he not a student ? The pages
vii A 1
viii Introduction
here in which he directs, after a certain security of the
hand has been attained, the copying of a plate from the
Liber Studiorum, had their signal accompaniment in such
studies as that of rock and leafage, made at Crossmount,
Perthshire, in 1847 ; or that strange fantasy of exalted
towered peaks, with a bridge below and a rift of troubled
light surprising the sombre water, which was labelled
simply, ''98; Drawing in Imitation of Turner." Nos. 114,
117 and 120 again gave us three of his infinitely patient
botanical studies — studies of a Rush, which he had used
as one of his subjects at the Oxford Drawing School. And
with these, the colour studies of a single larch bud or of ivy,
served to bring back this incomparable drawing-master in
his actual handling of his brush, and by some illusion
perhaps to recall to those who had once studied under him
the very tones of his voice, the very trick of his hand.
Mr. W. G. Collingwood, pupil and friend and biographer
of the master, has also written a book on "The Art-teaching
of Ruskin," which will be found of very considerable service
by those who care to become, in any larger sense, his pupils
too. There is the less need to state here upon any elaborate
plan, the theory and practice of Ruskin the artist, as he has
expressed them elsewhere. Of the numberless passages in
his larger works which continue or modify the teaching of
this volume, I must be content to quote two or three that
have been called to mind in reading it. Take this, applying
to his climacteric art of arts, architecture, the idea of Pro-
portion, essential, but unpredicable, which may be set beside
what he says on composition in Letter III : —
" Now, of Proportion so much has been written, that
I believe the only facts which are of practical use have been
overwhelmed and kept out of sight by vain accumulations
of particular instances and estimates. Proportions are as
infinite (and that in all kinds of things, as severally in
colours, lines, shades, lights, and forms) as possible airs in
music : and it is just as rational an attempt to teach a young
architect how to proportion truly and well by calculating for
him the proportions of fine works, as it would be to teach
him to compose melodies by calculating the mathematical
relations of the notes in Beethoven's 'Adelaide' or Mozart's
' Requiem.' The man who has eye and intellect will invent
beautiful proportions, and cannot help it ; but he can no
more tell us how to do it than Wordsworth could tell us how
to write a sonnet, or than Scott could have told us how to
plan a romance. . . ."
Introduction ix
Not the least service that these two books do for us is to
send us only half satisfied or asking for more and more
knowledge to the pages of "'Modern Painters" and other
works where Ruskin uses lavish practical illustrations. This
again: "Take the commonest, closest, most familiar thing,
and strive to draw it verily as you see it. Be sure of this
last fact, for otherwise you will find yourself continually
drawing, not what you see, but what you know. The best
practice to begin with is, sitting about three yards from
a bookcase (not your own, so that you may know none of
the titles of the books), to try to draw the books accurately,
with the titles on the backs, and patterns on the bindings,
as you see them. You are not to stir from your place to
seek what they are, but to draw them simply as they appear,
giving the perfect look of neat lettering ; which, nevertheless,
must be (as you will find it on most of the books) absolutely
illegible. Next, try to draw a piece of patterned muslin or
lace (of which you do not know the pattern), a little way off,
and rather in the shade ; and be sure you get all the grace
and look of the pattern without going a step nearer to see
what it is. Then try to draw a bank of grass, with all its
blades ; or a bush, with all its leaves ; and you will soon
begin to understand under what a universal law of obscurity
we live, and perceive that all distinct drawing must be baa
drawing, and that nothing can be right, till it is unintelligible."'
Is this a hard saying? It seems paradoxical, but it is by
his recognition of the illusions and the veracities and the
innocences of the eye, as it ministers to our faculty and
perceptions in art, that Ruskin clears for us our working
vision. Two more passages, developed on lines helpful to
readers of the " Elements," must yet be included : one on the
drawing of a fir-tree, the other on the drawing of water —
" One of the most marked distinctions between one artist
and another, in the point of skill, will be found in their
relative delicacy of perception of rounded surface ; the full
power of expressing the perspective, foreshortening, and
various undulation of such surface is, perhaps, the last and
most difficult attainment of the hand and eye. For instance :
there is, perhaps, no tree which has baffled the landscape
painter more than the common black spruce fir. It is rare
that we see any representation of it other than caricature.
It is conceived as if it grew in one plane, or as a section 01
a tree, with a set of boughs symmetrically dependent on
opposite sides. It is thought formal, unmanageable, and
ugly. It would be so, if it grew as it is drawn. But the
x Introduction
Power of the tree is not in that chandelier-like section. It
is in the dark, flat, solid tables of leafage, which it holds
out on its strong arms, curved slightly over them like shields,
and spreading towards the extremity like a hand. It is vain
to endeavour to paint the sharp, grassy, intricate leafage,
until this ruling form has been secured ; and in the boughs
that approach the spectator, the foreshortening of it is like
that of a wide hill country, ridge just rising over ridge in
successive distances ; and the finger-like extremities, fore-
shortened to absolute bluntness, require a delicacy in the
rendering of them like that of the drawing of the hand of
the Magdalene upon the vase in Mr. Rogers's Titian. Get but
the back of that foliage, and you have the tree; but I cannot
name the artist who has thoroughly felt it." Compare this
fine relation of the Power of the Tree, with what is said of
its Unity, in his section (in Letter III) on Radiation. The
other passage supplements the wonderful pages on Water
and its illusions and depiction in Letter II : —
"There is, perhaps, nothing which tells more in the
drawing of water than decisive and swift execution ; for, in
a rapid touch the hand naturally falls into the very curve of
projection which is the absolute truth ; while in slow finish,
all precision of curve and character is certain to be lost
except under the hand of an unusually powerful master. . . .
" I believe it is a result of the experience of all artists,
that it is the easiest thing in the world to give a certain
degree of depth and transparency to water ; but that it is
next thing to impossible, to give a full impression of surface.
If no reflection be given — a ripple being supposed — the water
looks like lead : if reflection be given, it in nine cases out of
ten, looks morbidly clear and deep. . . . Now, this difficulty
arises from the very same circumstance which occasions the
frequent failure in effect of the best drawn foregrounds, the
change, namely of focus necessary in the eye in order to
receive rays of light coming from different distances. Go
to the edge of a pond, in a perfectly calm day, at some place
where there is duckweed floating on the surface, — not thick,
but a leaf here and there. Now, you may either see in the
water the reflection of the sky, or you may see the duck-weed ;
but you cannot, by any effort, see both together. . . . Hence
it appears, that whenever we see plain reflections of com-
paratively distant objects, in near water, we cannot possibly
see the surface, and vice versa. . . . Hence, the ordinary
effect of water is only to be rendered by giving the reflections
of the margin clear and distinct (so clear they usually are in
Bibliography xi
nature, that is impossible to tell where the water begins) ;
but the moment we touch the reflection of distant objects, as
of high trees or clouds, that instant we must become vague
and uncertain in drawing, and, though vivid in colour and
light as the obiect itself, quite indistinct in form and
feature."
It is not necessary to be a professional draughtsman, or
a water painter, to gain by this characteristic lesson in
seeing and drawing water. Ruskin was a "seer," in every
cast of the word : and I do not know that one realises it in
any pages of his more than in these two least considered
drawing primers of his, which deal with the elements and
principles of his art. That they do not give us his latest
teaching, it is well finally to remember. He changed his
opinion about the value of stippling, for instance ; and they
should be read conjointly with his " Laws of Fesole " (which
was never completed) and other later books, if we would
use them aright-
A Student of Ruskin.
March 1907.
The following is a list of Ruskin's published works : —
Ruskin's first printed writings were contributions to the " Magazine
of Natural History," 1834-6, and Poems in "Friendship's Offer-
ing," 1835, Oxford prize poem, "Salsette and Elephanta,' 1839.
"Modem Painters," Vol. I. 1843; 2nd. ed., 1844; 3rd ed.,
1846— later ones followed; Vol. II., 1846; Vol. III., 1856; Vol.
IV., 1856; Vol. V., i860. Selections from "Modern Painters"
include " Frondes Agrestes," 1875 ; " In Montibus Sanctis," 1884 ;
"Coeli Enarrant," 1885 (see also p. xiii).
" Seven Lamps of Architecture," 1849 ; second edition, 1855.
"The Scythian Guest," 1849 (from "Friend-hip's Offering");
"Poems," 1850 (from "Friendship's Offering," "Amaranth,"
"London Monthly Miscellany," "Keepsake," Heath's "Book
of Beauty," with others not previously printed). "Stones of
Venice," Vol. I., 1 85 1 ; second edition, 1858; Vol. II., 1853;
second edition, 1867; Vol. III., 1853; second edition, 1867.
"The King of the Golden River," 1851 ; "Notes on the Con-
struction of Sheepfolds," 1851 ; " Examples of the Architecture of
Venice," 1851 ; " Pre-Raphaelitism," 1851 ; "The National
Gallery," 1852 ; " Giotto and his works in Padua," 3 parts, 1853,
1854, i860 ; " Lectures on Architecture and Painting," 1854, 1855 ;
" The Opening of the Crystal Palace," 1854 ; Pamphlet for the
preservation of Ancient Buildings and Landmarks, 1854; "Notes
on the Royal Academy," No. I., 1855 (three editions); No. II.,
A 2
xii Bibliography
1856 (six editions) ; No. III. (four editions), 1857 (two editions) ;
Nos. IV., V. and VI., 1858, 1859, 1875; "The Harbours of
England," 1856, 1857, 1859; "Notes on the Turner Gallery at
Marlborough House," 1856-7 (several editions in 1857) ; " Cata-
logue of the Turner Sketches in the National Gallery," 1857
(two editions) ; " Catalogue of Turner's Drawings," 1857-8 ;
" The Elements of Drawing," 1857 (two editions) ; " The Political
Economy of Art," 1857, published in 1880 as "A Joy for
Ever"; "Inaugural Addresses at the Cambridge School of Art,"
1858; "The Geology of Chamouni," 1858; "The Oxford
Museum," 1859 ; "The Unity of Art," 1859 ; " The Two Paths,"
1859; "Elements of Perspective," 1859; "Tree Twigs," 1861 ;
"Catalogue of Turner Drawings presented to the Fitzwilliam
Museum," 1861 ; "Unto this Last," 1862 (from the " Cornhill
Magazine") ; "Forms of the Stratified Alps of Savoy," 1863 ; " The
Queen's Gardens," 1864; "Sesame and Lilies," 1865 (two editions) ;
''The Ethics of the Dust," 1866 ; "The Crown of Wild Olive,"
1866 (two editions); "War," 1866; "Time and Tide," 1867;
" Leoni, a legend of Italy," 1868 (from " Friendship's Offering") ;
" Notes on the Employment of the Destitute and Criminal Classes,"
1868; "References to Paintings in illustration of Flamboyant
Architecture," 1869; "The Mystery of Life and its Arts " (after-
noon lectures), 1869; "The Queen of the Air," 1869 (two
editions); "The Future of England," 1870; "Samuel Prout,"
1870 (from "The Art Journal"); "Verona and its Rivers,"
1870; "Lectures on Art," 1870; "Drawings and Photographs
illustrative of the Architecture of Verona," 1870 ; " Fors Clavigera,"
1871-84; " Munera Pulveris," 1872; " Aratra Pentelici," 1872;
"Instructions in Elementary Drawing," 1872; "The Relation
between Michael Angelo and Tintoret," 1872 ; " The Eagle's
Nest," 1872 ; "Monuments of the Cavalli Family," 1872 ;
"The Nature and Authority of Miracle" (from the "Contem-
porary Review"), 1873; "Val D'Arno," 1874; "Mornings in
Florence" (in parts), 1875—7 ; "Proserpina" (in parts), 1875-
86; Vol. I., 1879; "Deucalion" (in parts), 1875-83; Vol. I.,
1879 ; Vol. II. (two parts only), 1880, 1883 ; "Ariadne Florentina,"
1876 ; "Letters to the 'Times' on Pre-Raphaelite Pictures in the
Exhibition of 1854," 1876; " Yewdale and its Streamlets," 1877;
"St. Mark's Rest" (3 parts), 1877-9, 1884; "Guide to Pictures
in the Academy of Arts, Venice," 1877 ; " Notes on the Turner
Exhibition," 1878 ; " 1 he Laws of Fesole" (four parts, 1877-8),
1879 ; "Notes on the Prout and Hunt Exhibition," 1879-80;
"Circular respecting the Memorial Studies at St. Mark's," 1879-80 ;
"Letters to the Clergy" (Lord's Prayer and the Church), 1879,
1880; "Arrows of the Chace," 2 vols., 1880; " Elements of
English Prosody," 1880; "The Bible of Amiens," 1884 (first
published in parts) ; " Love's Meinie " (Lectures delivered at Oxford,
1873-81), 1 88 1 ; " Catalogue of Drawings and Sketches by Turner
in the National Gallery," 1881 ; "Catalogue of Silicious Minerals
Bibliography xiii
at St. David's School, Reigate," 1883; "The Art of England,"
1884 (originally published as separate lectures) ; " The Storm Cloud
of the Nineteenth Century," 1884; "Catalogue of Specimens of
Silica in the British Museum," 1884 ; " Catalogue of Minerals
given to Kirkcudbright Museum," 1884; "The Pleasures of Eng-
land" (Lectures delivered), 1884-5; "°n tne O1^ Road," con-
tributions to Periodical Literature, 2 vols., 1885; " Prseterita," 3
vols., 1885-9; "Dilecta," 1886-87; " Hortus Inclusus," 1887;
" Ruskiniana," 1890-92; "Poems" (Complete edition), 1891 ;
"Poetry of Architecture," 1892 (from the "Architectural
Magazine ").
" Stray Letters to a London Bibliophile," 1892 ; " Letters upon
Subjects of General Interest to various Correspondents," 1892 ;
"Letters to William Ward," 1893 ; " Letters addressed to a College
Friend," 1894 ; Separate Collections of Letters, edited by T. J.
Wise, were published 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1897 ; " Letters to
Charles Eliot Norton," edited by C. E. Norton, 1897 ; " Lectures on
Landscape," 1897 ; " Letters to Mary and Helen Gladstone," 1903.
Works, in eleven volumes, 1871-83; Complete revised edition
of "Modern Painters," with Bibliography, Notes, etc. (6 vols.),
1888 ; " The Life and Letters and Complete Works," Library
Edition, edited by E. T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, 1903, etc., in
about 38 volumes.
For Life, see also W. G. Colling wood : "John Ruskin, a
Biographical Outline," 1889 ; " Life and Work of John Ruskin,"
1893 J " Life of John Ruskin," 1900 ; Frederic Harrison : " English
Men of Letters," 1902.
PREFACE
[TO ORIGINAL EDITION OF 1857]
It may perhaps be thought, that in prefacing a manual of
drawing, I ought to expatiate on the reasons why drawing
should be learned ; but those reasons appear to me so many
and so weighty, that I cannot quickly state or enforce them.
With the reader's permission, as this volume is too large
already, I will waive all discussion respecting the importance
of the subject, and touch only on those points which may
appear questionable in the method of its treatment
In the first place, the book is not calculated for the use of
children under the age of twelve or fourteen. I do not think
it advisable to engage a child in any but the most voluntary
practice of art. If it has talent for drawing, it will be con-
tinually scrawling on what paper it can get ; and should be
allowed to scrawl at its own free will, due praise being given
for every appearance of care, or truth, in its efforts. It should
be allowed to amuse itself with cheap colours almost as soon
as it has sense enough to wish for them. If it merely daubs
the paper with shapeless stains, the colour-box may be taken
away till it knows better : but as soon as it begins painting
red coats on soldiers, striped flags to ships, &c, it should
have colours at command ; and, without restraining its
choice of subject in that imaginative and historical art, of
a military tendency, which children delight in, (generally
quite as valuable, by the way, as any historical art delighted
in by their elders,) it should be gently led by the parents to
try to draw, in such childish fashion as may be, the things it
can see and likes, — birds, or butterflies, or flowers, or fruit.
In later years, the indulgence of using the colour should only
be granted as a reward, after it has shown care and progress
in its drawings with pencil. A limited number of good and
amusing prints should always be within a boy's reach : in
these days of cheap illustration he can hardly possess a
volume of nursery tales without good woodcuts in it, and
should be encouraged to copy what he likes best of this kind ;
but should be firmly restricted to a few prints and to a few
books. If a child has many toys, it will get tired of them
and break them ; if a boy has many prints he will merely
dawdle and scrawl over them ; it is by the limitation of the
xvi Preface
number of his possessions that his pleasure in them is
perfected, and his attention concentrated. The parents need
give themselves no trouble in instructing him, as far as
drawing is concerned, beyond insisting upon economical and
neat habits with his colours and paper, showing him the best
way of holding pencil and rule, and, so far as they take notice
of his work, pointing out where a line is too short or too long,
or too crooked, when compared with the copy ; accuracy being
the first and last thing they look for. If the child shows talent
for inventing or grouping figures, the parents should neither
check, nor praise it. They may laugh with it frankly, or
show pleasure in what it has done, just as they show pleasure
in seeing it well, or cheerful ; but they must not praise it for
being clever, any more than they would praise it for being
stout. They should praise it only for what costs it self-
denial, namely attention and hard work ; otherwise they
will make it work for vanity's sake, and always badly. The
best books to put into its hands are those illustrated by
George Cruikshank or by Richter. (See Appendix.) At
about the age of twelve or fourteen, it is quite time enough
to set youth or girl to serious work ; and then this book will,
I think, be useful to them ; and I have good hope it may be
so, likewise, to persons of more advanced age wishing to know
something of the first principles of art.
Yet observe, that the method of study recommended is not
brought forward as absolutely the best, but only as the best
which I can at present devise for an isolated student. It is
very likely that farther experience in teaching may enable
me to modify it with advantage in several important respects ;
but I am sure the main principles of it are sound, and most
of the exercises as useful as they can be rendered without a
master's superintendence. The method differs, however, so
materially from that generally adopted by drawing-masters,
that a word or two of explanation may be needed to justify
what might otherwise be thought wilful eccentricity.
The manuals at present published on the subject of drawing
are all directed, as far as 1 know, to one or other of two
objects. Either they propose to give the student a power of
dexterous sketching with pencil or water-colour, so as to
emulate (at considerable distance) the slighter work of our
second-rate artists ; or they propose to give him such accurate
command of mathematical forms as may afterwards enable
him to design rapidly and cheaply for manufactures. When
drawing is taught as an accomplishment, the first is the aim
usually proposed ; while the second is the object kept chiefly
Preface xvii
in view at Marlborough House, and in the branch Government
Schools of Design.
Of the fitness of the modes of study adopted in those
schools, to the end specially intended, judgment is hardly yet
possible ; only, it seems to me, that we are all too much in
the habit of confusing art as applied to manufacture, with
manufacture itself. For instance, the skill by which an
inventive workman designs and moulds a beautiful cup, is
skill of true art ; but the skill by which that cup is copied
and afterwards multiplied a thousandfold, is skill of manu-
facture : and the faculties which enable one workman to
design and elaborate his original piece, are not to be developed
by the same system of instruction as those which enable
another to produce a maximum number of approximate copies
of it in a given time. Farther : it is surely inexpedient that
any reference to purposes of manufacture should interfere with
the education of the artist himself. Try first to manufacture
a Raphael ; then let Raphael direct your manufacture. He
will design you a plate, or cup, or a house, or a palace, when-
ever you want it, and design them in the most convenient
and rational way ; but do not let your anxiety to reach the
platter and the cup interfere with your education of the
Raphael. Obtain first the best work you can, and the ablest
hands, irrespective of any consideration of economy or facility
of production. Then leave your trained artist to determine
how far art can be popularised, or manufacture ennobled.
Now, I believe that (irrespective of differences in individual
temper and character) the excellence of an artist, as such,
depends wholly on refinement of perception, and that it is
this, mainly, which a master or a school can teach ; so that
while powers of invention distinguish man from man, powers
of perception distinguish school from school. All great
schools enforce delicacy of drawing and subtlety of sight :
and the only rule which I have, as yet, found to be without
exception respecting art, is that all great art is delicate.
Therefore, the chief aim and bent of the following system
is to obtain, first, a perfectly patient, and, to the utmost of
the pupil's power, a delicate method of work, such as may
ensure his seeing truly. For I am nearly convinced, that
when once we see keenly enough there is very little difficulty
in drawing what we see ; but, even supposing that this
difficulty be still great, I believe that the sight is a more
important thing than the drawing ; and I would rather teach
drawing that my pupils may learn to love Nature, than teach
the looking at Nature that they may learn to draw. It is
xviii Preface
surely also a more important thing, for young people and
unprofessional students, to know how to appreciate the art
of others, than to gain much power in art themselves. Now
the modes of sketching ordinarily taught are inconsistent
with this power of judgment. No person trained to the
superficial execution of modern water-colour painting, can
understand the work of Titian or Leonardo ; they must for
ever remain blind to the refinement of such men's pencilling,
and the precision of their thinking. But, however slight a
degree of manipulative power the student may reach by
pursuing the mode recommended to him in these letters, I
will answer for it that he cannot go once through the advised
exercises without beginning to understand what masterly
work means ; and, by the time he has gained some proficiency
in them, he will have a pleasure in looking at the painting of
the great schools, and a new perception of the exquisiteness
of natural scenery, such as would repay him for much more
labour than I have asked him to undergo.
That labour is, nevertheless, sufficiently irksome, nor is it
possible that it should be otherwise, so long as the pupil
works unassisted by a master. For the smooth and straight
road which admits unembarrassed progress must, I fear, be
dull as well as smooth ; and the hedges need to be close and
trim when there is no guide to warn or bring back the erring
traveller. The system followed in this work will, therefore,
at first, surprise somewhat sorrowfully those who are familiar
with the practice of our class at the Working Men's College;
for there, the pupil, having the master at his side to extricate
him from such embarrassments as his first efforts may lead
into, is at once set to draw from a solid object, and soon finds
entertainment in his efforts and interest in his difficulties.
Of course the simplest object which it is possible to set before
the eye is a sphere ; and, practically, I find a child's toy, a
white leather ball, better than anything else; as the gradations
on balls of plaster of Paris, which I use sometimes to try the
strength of pupils who have had previous practice, are a little
too delicate for a beginner to perceive. It has been objected
that a circle, or the outline of a sphere, is one of the most
difficult of all lines to draw. It is so ; but I do not want it
to be drawn. All that his study of the ball is to teach the
pupil, is the way in which shade gives the appearance of
projection. This he learns most satisfactorily from a sphere ;
because any solid form, terminated by straight lines or flat
surfaces, owes some of its appearance of projection to its
perspective ; but in the sphere, what, without shade, was a
Preface xix
flat circle, becomes, merely by the added shade, the image ol
a solid ball ; and this fact is just as striking to the learner,
whether his circular outline be true or false. He is, .there-
fore, never allowed to trouble himself about it ; if he makes
the ball look as oval as an egg, the degree of error is simply
pointed out to him, and he does better next time, and better
still the next. But his mind is always fixed on the gradation
of shade, and the outline left to take, in due time, care of
itself. I call it outline, for the sake of immediate intelli-
gibility,— strictly speaking, it is merely the edge of the shade ;
no pupil in my class being ever allowed to draw an outline,
in the ordinary sense. It is pointed out to him, from the
first, that Nature relieves one mass, or one tint, against
another ; but outlines none. The outline exercise, the second
suggested in this letter, is recommended, not to enable the
pupil to draw outlines, but as the only means by which,
unassisted, he can test his accuracy of eye, and discipline
his hand. When the master is by, errors in the form and
extent of shadows can be pointed out as easily as in outline,
and the handling can be gradually corrected in details of the
work. But the solitary student can only find out his own
mistakes by help of the traced limit, and can only test the
firmness of his hand by an exercise in which nothing but
firmness is required ; and during which all other consider-
ations (as of softness, complexity, &c.) are entirely excluded.
Both the system adopted at the Working Men's College,
and that recommended here, agree, however, in one principle,
which I consider the most important and special of all that
are involved in my teaching : namely, the attaching its full
importance, from the first, to local colour. I believe that the
endeavour to separate, in the course of instruction, the obser-
vation of light and shade from that of local colour, has always
been, and must always be, destructive of the student's power
of accurate sight, and that it corrupts his taste as much as it
retards his progress. I will not occupy the reader's time by
any discussion of the principle here, but I wish him to note
it as the only distinctive one in my system, so far as it is a
system. For the recommendation to the pupil to copy faith-
fully, and without alteration, whatever natural object he
chooses to study, is serviceable, among other reasons, just
because it gets rid of systematic rules altogether, and teaches
people to draw, as country lads learn to ride, without saddle
or stirrups ; my main object being, at first, not to get my
pupils to hold their reins prettily, but to "sit like a jackanapes,
never off."
xx Preface
In these written instructions, therefore, it has always been
with regret that I have seen myself forced to advise anything
like monotonous or formal discipline. But, to the unassisted
student, such formalities are indispensable, and I am not
without hope that the sense of secure advancement, and the
pleasure of independent effort, may render the following out
of even the more tedious exercises here proposed, possible to
the solitary learner, without weariness. But if it should be
otherwise, and he finds the first steps painfully irksome, I
can only desire him to consider whether the acquirement of
so great a power as that of pictorial expression of thought be
not worth some toil ; or whether it is likely, in the natural
order of matters in this working world, that so great a gift
should be attainable by those who will give no price for it.
One task, however, of some difficulty, the student will find
I have not imposed upon him : namely, learning the laws of
perspective. It would be worth while to learn them, if he
could do so easily ; but without a master's help, and in the
way perspective is at present explained in treatises, the
difficulty is greater than the gain. For perspective is not
of the slightest use, except in rudimentary work. You can
draw the rounding line of a table in perspective, but you
cannot draw the sweep of a sea bay ; you can foreshorten a
log of wood by it, but you cannot foreshorten an arm. Its
laws are too gross and few to be applied to any subtle form ;
therefore, as you must learn to draw the subtle forms by the
eye, certainly you may draw the simple ones. No great
painters ever trouble themselves about perspective, and very
few of them know its laws ; they draw everything by the eye,
and, naturally enough, disdain in the easy parts of their work
rules which cannot help them in difficult ones. It would take
about a month's labour to draw imperfectly, by laws of
perspective, what any great Venetian will draw perfectly in
five minutes, when he is throwing a wreath of leaves round a
head, or bending the curves of a pattern in and out among
the folds of drapery. It is true that when perspective was
first discovered, everybody amused themselves with it ; and
all the great painters put fine saloons and arcades behind
their madonnas, merely to show that they could draw in
perspective : but even this was generally done by them only
to catch the public eye, and they disdained the perspective
so much, that though they took the greatest pains with the
circlet of a crown, or the rim of a crystal cup, in the heart of
their picture, they would twist their capitals of columns and
towers of churches about in the background in the most
Preface xxi
wanton way, wherever they liked the lines to go, provided
only they left just perspective enough to please the public.
In modern days, I doubt if any artist among us except David
Roberts, knows so much perspective as would enable him to
draw a Gothic arch to scale at a given angle and distance.
Turner, though he was professor of perspective to the Royal
Academy, did not know what he professed, and never, as far
as I remember, drew a single building in true perspective
in his life ; he drew them only with as much perspective
as suited him. Prout also knew nothing of perspective, and
twisted his buildings, as Turner did, into whatever shapes
he liked. I do not justify this ; and would recommend the
student at least to treat perspective with common civility,
but to pay no court to it. The best way he can learn it, by
himself, is by taking a pane of glass, fixed in a frame, so that
it can be set upright before the eye, at the distance at which
the proposed sketch is intended to be seen. Let the eye be
placed at some fixed point, opposite the middle of the pane
of glass, but as high or as low as the student likes ; then with
a brush at the end of a stick, and a little body-colour that
will adhere to the glass, the lines of the landscape may be
traced on the glass, as you see them through it. When
so traced they are all in true perspective. If the glass be
sloped in any direction, the lines are still in true perspective,
only it is perspective calculated for a sloping plane, while
common perspective always supposes the plane of the picture
to be vertical. It is good, in early practice, to accustom
yourself to enclose your subject, before sketching it, with a
light frame of wood held upright before you ; it will show
y >u what you may legitimately take into your picture, and
what choice there is between a narrow foreground near you,
and a wide one farther off ; also, what height of tree or
building you can properly take in, &C.1
Of figure drawing, nothing is said in the following pages,
because I do not think figures, as chief subjects, can be drawn
to any good purpose by an amateur. As accessaries in land-
scape, they are just to be drawn on the same principles as
a lything else.
Lastly : If any of the directions given subsequently to the
scudent should be found obscure by him, or if at any stage of
1 If the student is fond of architecture and wishes to know
more of perspective than he can learn in this rough way, Mr.
Runciman (of 49. Acacia Road, St. John's Wood), who was my
first drawing-master, and to whom I owe many happy hours,
can teach it him quickly, easily, and rightly.
xxii Preface
the recommended practice he find himself in difficulties which
1 have not enough provided against, he may apply by letter to
Mr. Ward, who is my under drawing-master at the Working
Men's College (45. Great Ormond Street), and who will give
any required assistance, on the lowest terms that can remune-
rate him for the occupation of his time. I have not leisure
myself in general to answer letters of inquiry, however much
I may desire to do so ; but Mr. Ward has always the power
of referring any question to me when he thinks it necessary.
I have good hope, however, that enough guidance is given
in this work to prevent the occurrence of any serious embar-
rassment ; and I believe that the student who obeys its
directions will find, on the whole, that the best answerer of
questions is perseverance ; and the best drawing-masters
are the woods and hills.
CONTENTS
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING
LETTER I
PAGE
ON FIRST PRACTICE I
LETTER II
SKETCHING FROM NATURE 69
LETTER III
ON COLOUR AND COMPOSITION . . . 113
APPENDIX : THINGS TO BE STUDIED . . 195
ELEMENTS OF PERSPECTIVE
PREFACE ........ 207
INTRODUCTION . ..... 209
PROBLEM I
TO FIX THE POSITION OF A GIVEN POINT . . 219
PROBLEM II
TO DRAW A RIGHT LINE BETWEEN TWO GIVEN
POINTS. . . . . . .222
xxiii
xxiv Contents
PROBLEM III
TO FIND THE DIVIDING-POINTS OF A GIVEN HORI-
ZONTAL LINE .....
PROBLEM V
PAGE
TO FIND THE VANISHING-POINT OF A GIVEN HORI-
ZONTAL LINE 2 26
PROBLEM IV
232
TO DRAW A HORIZONTAL LINE, GIVEN IN POSITION
AND MAGNITUDE, BY MEANS OF ITS SIGHT-
MAGNITUDE AND DIVIDING-POINTS . . 233
PROBLEM VI
TO DRAW ANY TRIANGLE, GIVEN IN POSITION AND
MAGNITUDE, IN A HORIZONTAL PLANE . . 236
PROBLEM VII
TO DRAW ANY RECTILINEAR QUADRILATERAL
FIGURE, GIVEN IN POSITION AND MAGNITUDE,
IN A HORIZONTAL PLANE .... 238
PROBLEM VIII
TO DRAW A SQUARE, GIVEN IN POSITION AND
MAGNITUDE, IN A HORIZONTAL PLANE . . 239
PROBLEM IX
TO DRAW A SQUARE PILLAR, GIVEN IN POSITION
AND MAGNITUDE, ITS BASE AND TOP BEING
IN HORIZONTAL PLANES . . . 242
Contents xxv
PROBLEM X
PAGE
TO DRAW A PYRAMID, GIVEN IN POSITION AND
MAGNITUDE, ON A SQUARE BASE IN A HORI-
ZONTAL PLANE 244
PROBLEM XI
TO DRAW ANY CURVE IN A HORIZONTAL OR
VERTICAL PLANE . . . - . .246
PROBLEM XII
TO DIVIDE A CIRCLE DRAWN IN PERSPECTIVE INTO
ANY GIVEN NUMBER OF EQUAL PARTS . . 2 "O ■
PROBLEM XIII
TO DRAW A SQUARE, GIVEN IN MAGNITUDE, WITHIN
A LARGER SQUARE GIVEN IN POSITION AND
MAGNITUDE ; THE SIDES OF THE TWO SQUARES
BEING PARALLEL . . . . . • 253
PROBLEM XIV
TO DRAW A TRUNCATED CIRCULAR CONE, GIVEN
IN PO-ITION AND MAGNITUDE, THE TRUNCA-
TIONS BEING IN HORIZONTAL PLANES, AND
THE AXIS OF THE CONE VERTICAL . . 255
PROBLEM XV
TO DRAW AN INCLINED LINE, GIVEN IN POSITION
AND MAGNITUDE 2^8
PROBLEM XVI
TO FIND THE VANISHING-POINT OF A GIVEN IN-
CLINED LINT 201
xxvi Contents
PROBLEM XVII
VIDING-POINTS OF A
CLIXED LINE ...... 263
PAGE
TO FIND THE DIVIDING-POINTS OF A GIVEN IN
PROBLEM XVIII
TO FIND THE SIGHT-LINE OF AN INCLINED PLANE
IN WHICH TWO LINES ARE GIVEN IN POSITION 2b$
PROBLEM XIX
TO FIND THE VANISHING-POINT OF STEEPEST LINES
IN AN INCLINED PLANE WHOSE SIGHT-LINE
IS GIVEN ....... 267
PROBLEM XX
TO FIND THE VANISHING-POINT OF LINES PERPEN-
DICULAR TO THE SURFACE OF A GIVEN IN-
CLINED PLANE ...... 269
APPENDIX
I
PRACTICE AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRECEDING
PROBLEMS . 277
II
DEMONSTRATIONS WHICH COULD NOT CONVENI-
ENTLY BE INCLUDED IN THE TEXT . . 302
INDEX ........ 309
>
THE
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING
LETTER I
OX FIRST PRACTICE
My dear Reader, — Whether this book is to be
of use to you or not, depends wholly on your reason
for wishing to learn to draw. If you desire only
to possess a graceful accomplishment, to be able to-
converse in a fluent manner about drawing, or to
amuse yourself listlessly in listless hours, I cannot
help you : but if you wish to learn drawing that you
may be able to set down clearly, and usefully,
records of such things as cannot be described in
words, either to assist your own memory of them, or
to convey distinct ideas of them to other people ; if
you wish to obtain quicker perceptions of the beauty
of the natural world, and to preserve something like
a true image of beautiful things that pass away, or
which you must yourself leave ; if, also, you wish to
understand the minds of great painters, and to be
able to appreciate their work sincerely, seeing it for
yourself, and loving it, not merely taking up the
thoughts of other people about it ; then I can help
you, or, which is better, show you how to help
yourself.
Only you must understand, first of all, that these
powers, which indeed are noble and desirable, cannot
be got without work. It is much easier to learn to
draw well, than it is to learn to play well on any
musical instrument ; but you know that it takes
three or four years of practice, giving three or four
hours a day, to acquire even ordinary command
B
2 The Elements of Drawing
over the keys of a piano ; and you must not think
that a masterly command of your pencil, and the
knowledge of what may be done with it, can be
acquired without painstaking, or in a very short time.
The kind of drawing which is taught, or supposed to
be taught, in our schools, in a term or two, perhaps
at the rate of an hour's practice a week, is not
drawing at all. It is only the performance of a few
dexterous (not always even that) evolutions on
paper with a black-lead pencil ; profitless alike to
performer and beholder, unless as a matter of vanity,
and that the smallest possible vanity. If any young
person, after being taught what is, in polite circles,
called ''drawing," will try to copy the commonest
piece of real work, — suppose a lithograph on the
titlepage of a new opera air, or a woodcut in the
cheapest illustrated newspaper of the day, — they
will find themselves entirely beaten. And yet that
common lithograph was drawn with coarse chalk,
much more difficult to manage than the pencil of
which an accomplished young lady is supposed to
have command ; and that woodcut was drawn in
urgent haste, and half-spoiled in the cutting after-
wards ; and both were done by people whom nobody
thinks of as artists, or praises for their power ; both
were done for daily bread, with no more artist's pride
than any simple handicraftsmen feel in the work
they live by.
Do not, therefore, think that you can learn drawing,
any more than a new language, without some hard
and disagreeable labour. But do not, on the other
hand, if you are ready and willing to pay this price,
fear that you may be unable to get on for want of
special talent. It is indeed true that the persons
who have peculiar talent for art, draw instinctively,
and get on almost without teaching ; though never
without toil. It is true, also, that of inferior talent
for drawing there are many degrees : it will take
one person a much longer time than another to
On First Practice 3
attain the same results, and the results thus painfully
attained are never quite so satisfactory as those got
with greater ease when the faculties are naturally
adapted to the study. But I have never yet, in the
experiments I have made, met with a person who
could not learn to draw at all ; and, in general, there
is a satisfactory and available power in every one to
learn drawing if he wishes, just as nearly all persons
have the power of learning French, Latin, or
arithmetic, in a decent and useful degree, if their lot
in life requires them to possess such knowledge.
Supposing then that you are ready to take a certain
amount of pains, and to bear a little irksomeness
and a few disappointments bravely, I can promise
you that an hour's practice a day for six months, or
an hour's practice every other day for twelve months,
or, disposed in whatever way you find convenient,
some hundred and fifty hours' practice, will give you
sufficient power of drawing faithfully whatever you
want to draw, and a good judgment, up to a certain
point, of other people's work : of which hours, if
you have one to spare at present, we may as well
begin at once.
EXERCISE I
Everything that you can see, in the world around
you, presents itself to your eyes only as an arrange-
ment of patches of different colours variously shaded.1
1 (X.B. This note is only for the satisfaction of incredulous
or curious readers. You may miss it if you are in a hurry, or
are willing to take the statement in the text on trust.)
The perception of solid Form is entirely a matter of ex-
perience. We See nothing but flat colours ; and it is only by a
series of experiments that we find out that a stain of black or
grey indicates the dark side of a solid substance, or that a
faint hue indicates that the object in which it appears is far
away. The whole technical power of painting depends on our
recovery of what may be called the innocence of the eye ; that
is to say, of a sort of childish perception of these flat stains of
4 The Elements of Drawing
Some of these patches of colour have an appearance
of lines or texture within them, as a piece of cloth
or silk has of threads, or an animal's skin shows
texture of hairs : but whether this be the case or not,
colour, merely as such, without consciousness of what they
signify, as a blind man would see them if suddenly gifted with
sight.
For instance ; when grass is lighted strongly by the sun in
certain directions, it is turned from green into a peculiar and
somewhat dusty-looking yellow. If we had been born blind,
and were suddenly endowed with sight on a piece of grass
thus lighted in some parts by the sun, it would appear to us
that part of the grass was green, and part a dusty yellow (very
nearly of the colour of primroses) ; and, if there were primroses
near, we should think that the sunlighted grass was another
mass of plants of the same sulphur-yellow colour. We should
try to gather some of them, and then find that the colour went
away from the grass when we stood between it and the sun,
but not from the primroses ; but by a series of experiments we
should find out that the sun was really the cause of the colour
in the one, — not in the other. We go through such processes
of experiment unconsciously in childhood ; and having once
come to conclusions touching the signification of certain
colours, we always suppose that we see what we only know,
and have hardly any consciousness of the real aspect of the
signs we have learned to interpret. Very few people have
any idea that sunlighted grass is yellow.
Now, a highly accomplished artist has always reduced
himself as nearly as possible to this condition of infantine
sight. He sees the colours of nature exactly as they are, and
therefore perceives at once in the sunlighted grass the precise
relation between the two colours that form its shade and light.
To him it does not seem shade and light, but bluish green
barred with gold.
Strive, therefore, first of all, to convince yourself of this
great fact about sight. This, in your hand, which you know
by experience and touch to be a book, is to your eye nothing
but a patch of white, variously gradated and spotted ; this
other thing near you, which by experience you know to be a
table, is to your eye only a patch of brown, variously darkened
and veined ; and soon : and the whole art of Painting consists
merely in perceiving the shape and depth of these patches of
colour, and putting patches of the same size, depth, and shape
on canvass. The only obstacle to the success of painting is,
that many of the real colours are brighter and paler than it is
possible to put on canvass : we must put darker ones to
represent them.
On First Practice 5
the first broad aspect of the thing is that of a patch
of some definite colour ; and the first thing to be
learned is, how to produce extents of smooth colour,
without texture.
This can only be done properly with a brush ;
but a brush, being soft at the point, causes so much
uncertainty in the touch of an unpractised hand,
that it is hardly possible to learn to draw first with
it, and it is better to take, in early practice, some
instrument with a hard and fine point, both that we
may give some support to the hand, and that by
working over the subject with so delicate a point,
the attention may be properly directed to all the
most minute parts of it. Even the best artists
need occasionally to study subjects with a pointed
instrument, in order thus to discipline their attention :
and a beginner must be content to do so for a con-
siderable period.
Also, observe that before we trouble ourselves
about differences of colour, we must be able to lay
on one colour properly, in whatever gradations of
depth and whatever shapes we want. We will try,
therefore, first to lay on tints or patches of grey, of
whatever depth we want, with a pointed instrument.
Take any finely pointed steel pen (one of Gillott's
lithographic crowquills is best), and a piece of quite
smooth, but not shining, note-paper, cream laid, and
get some ink that has stood already some time in
the inkstand, so as to be quite black, and as thick as
it can be without clogging the pen. Take a rule,
and draw four straight lines, so as to enclose a
square or nearly a square, about as large as a, Fig.
i. I say nearly a square, because it does not in
the least matter whether it is quite square or not,
the object being merely to get a space enclosed
by straight lines.
Now, try to fill in that square space with crossed
lines, so completely and evenly that it shall look like
a square patch of grey silk or cloth, cut out and laid
6 The Elements of Drawing
on the white paper, as at b. Cover it quickly, first
with straightish lines, in any direction you like, not
troubling yourself to draw them much closer or neater
than those in the square a. Let them quite dry
before retouching them. (If you draw three or four
squares side by side, you may always be going on
with one while the others are drying.) Then cover
these lines with others in a different direction, and let
those dry ; then in another direction still, and let
those dry. Always wait long enough to run no risk
of blotting, and then draw the lines as quickly as you
can. Each ought to be laid on as swiftly as the dash
Fig. i.
of the pen of a good writer ; but if you try to reach
this great speed at first, you will go over the edge of
the square, which is a fault in this exercise. Yet it
is better to do so now and then than to draw the lines
very slowly ; for if you do, the pen leaves a little dot
of ink at the end of each line, and these dots spoil
your work. So draw each line quickly, stopping
always as nearly as you can at the edge of the square.
The ends of lines which go over the edge are after-
wards to be removed with the penknife, but not till
you have done the v/hole work, otherwise you
roughen the paper, and the next line that goes over
the edge makes a blot.
When you have gone over the whole three or four
times, you will find some parts of the square look
darker than other parts. Now try to make the
lighter parts as dark as the rest, so that the whole
may be of equal depth or darkness. You will find,
on examining the work, that where it looks darkest
On First Practice 7
the lines are closest, or there are some much darker
line than elsewhere ; therefore you must put in other
lines, or little scratches and dots, between the lines in
the paler parts ; and where there are any very con-
spicuous dark lines, scratch them out lightly with the
penknife, for the eye must not be attracted by any
line in particular. The more carefully and delicately
you fill in the little gaps and holes the better ; you
will get on faster by doing two or three squares
perfectly than a great many badly. As the tint gets
closer and begins to look even, work with very little
ink in your pen, so as hardly to make any mark on
the paper ; and at last, where it is too dark, use the
edge of your penknife very lightly, and for some
time, to wear it softly into an even tone. You will
find that the greatest difficulty consists in getting
evenness : one bit will always look darker than
another bit of your square ; or there will be a
granulated and sandy look over the whole. When
you find your paper quite rough and in a mess, give
it up and begin another square, but do not rest
satisfied till you have done your best with every
square. The tint at last ought at least to be as close
and even as that in b, Fig. i. You will find, however,
that it is very difficult to get a pale tint ; because,
naturally, the ink lines necessary to produce a close
tint at all, blacken the paper more than you want.
You must get over this difficulty not so much by
leaving the lines wide apart as by trying to draw them
excessively fine, lightly and swiftly ; being very
cautious in filling in ; and, at last, passing the pen-
knife over the whole. By keeping several squares in
progress at one time, and reserving your pen for the
light one just when the ink is nearly exhausted, you
may get on better. The paper ought, at last, to look
lightly and evenly toned all over, with no lines
distinctly visible.
'8 The Elements of Drawing
EXERCISE II
As this exercise in shading is very tiresome, it will
be well to vary it by proceeding with another at the
same time. The power of shading rightly depends
mainly on lightness of hand and keenness of sight ;
but there are other qualities required in drawing,
dependent not merely on lightness, but steadiness of
hand ; and the eye, to be perfect in its power, must
be made accurate as well as keen, and not only see
shrewdly, but measure justly.
Possess yourself therefore of any cheap work on
botany containing outline plates of leaves and flowers,
it does not matter whether bad or good : Baxter's
British Flowering Plants is quite good enough.
Copy any of the simplest outlines, first with a soft
pencil, following it, by the eye, as nearly as you can ;
if it does not look right in proportions, rub out and
correct it, always by the eye, till you think it is right :
when you have got it to your mind, lay tracing-paper
on the book, on this paper trace the outline you have
been copying, and apply it to your own ; and having
thus ascertained the faults, correct them all patiently,
till you have got it as nearly accurate as may be. Work
with a very soft pencil, and do not rub out so hard l
as to spoil the surface of your paper ; never mind how
dirty the paper gets, but do not roughen it ; and let the
false outlines alone where they do not really interfere
1 Stale crumb of bread is better, if you are making' a delicate
drawing, than India-rubber, for it disturbs the surface of the
paper less : but it crumbles about the room and makes a mess ;
and, besides, you waste the good bread, which is wrong ; and
your drawing will not for a long while be worth the crumbs.
So use India-rubber very lightly ; or, if heavily, pressing it only,
not passing it over the paper, and leave what pencil marks will
not come away so, without minding them. In a finished
drawing the uneffaced penciling is otten serviceable, helping
the general tone, and enabling you to take out little bright
lights.
On First Practice 9
with the true one. It is a good thing to accustom
yourself to hew and shape your drawing out of a dirty
piece of paper. When you have got it as right as
you can, take a quill pen, not very fine at the point ;
rest your hand on a book about an inch and a half
thick, so as to hold the pen long ; and go over your
pencil outline with ink, raising your pen point as
seldom as possible, and never leaning more heavily
on one part of the line than on another. In most
outline drawings of the present day, parts of the
curves are thickened to give an effect of shade ; all
such outlines are bad, but they will serve well enough
for your exercises, provided you do not imitate this
character : it is better, however, if you can, to choose
a book of pure outlines. It does not in the least
matter whether your pen outline be thin or thick ; but
it matters greatly that it should be equal, not heavier
in one place than in another. The power to be
obtained is that of drawing an even line slowly and
in any direction ; all dashing lines, or approximations
to penmanship, are bad. The pen should, as it were,
walk slowly over the ground, and you should be able
at any moment to stop it, or to turn it in any
other direction, like a well-managed horse.
As soon as you can copy every curve slowly and
accurately, you have made satisfactory progress ; but
you will find the difficulty is in the slowness. It is
easy to draw what appears to be a good line with a
sweep of the hand, or with what is called freedom1 ;
1 What is usually so much sought after under the term
" freedom " is the character of the drawing of a great master
in a hurry, whose hand is so thoroughly disciplined, that when
pressed for time he can let it fly as it will, and it will not go far
wrong. But the hand of a great master at real work is never
free : its swiftest dash is under perfect government. Paul
Veronese or Tintoret could pause within a hair's breadth of
any appointed mark, in their fastest touches ; and follow,
within a hair's breadth, the previously intended curve. You
must never, therefore, aim at freedom. It is not required of
your drawing that it should be free, but that it should be right :
in time you will be able to do right easily, and then your work
io The Elements of Drawing
the real difficulty and masterliness is in never letting
the hand be free, but keeping it under entire control
at every part of the line.
EXERCISE III
Meantime, you are always to be going on with
your shaded squares, and chiefly with these, the
outline exercises being taken up only for rest.
As soon as you find you have some command of
the pen as a shading instrument, and can lay a pale
Fig. 2.
or dark tint as you choose, try to produce gradated
spaces like Fig. 2., the dark tint passing gradually
into the lighter ones. Nearly all expression of form,
in drawing, depends on your power of gradating
delicately ; and the gradation is always most skilful
which passes from one tint into another very little
paler. Draw, therefore, two parallel lines for limits
to your work, as in Fig. 2., and try to gradate the
will be free in the best sense ; but there is no merit in doing
wrong easily.
These remarks, however, do not apply to the lines used in
shading, which, it will be remembered, are to be made as
quickly as possible. The reason of this is, that the quicker
a line is drawn, the lighter it is at the ends, and therefore
the more easily joined with other lines, and concealed by
them ; the object in perfect shading being to conceal the lines
as much as possible.
And observe, in this exercise, the object is more to get firm-
ness of hand than accuracy of eye for outline ; for there are no
outlines in Nature, and the ordinary student is sure to draw
them falsely if he draws them at all. Do not, therefore, be dis-
couraged if you find mistakes continue to occur in your outlines ;
be content at present if you find your hand gaining command
over the curves.
On First Practice n
shade evenly from white to black, passing over the
greatest possible distance, yet so that every part
of the band may have visible change in it. The
perception of gradation is very deficient in all
beginners (not to say, in many artists), and you will
probably, for some time, think your gradation skilful
enough, when it is quite patchy and imperfect. By
getting a piece of grey shaded riband, and comparing
it with your drawing, you may arrive, in early stages
of your work, at a wholesome dissatisfaction with it.
Widen your band little by little as you get more
skilful, so as to give the gradation more lateral
space, and accustom yourself at the same time to
look for gradated spaces in Nature. The sky is the
largest and the most beautiful ; watch it at twilight,
after the sun is down, and try to consider each pane
of glass in the window you look through as a piece of
paper coloured blue, or grey, or purple, as it happens
to be, and observe how quietly and continuously the
gradation extends over the space in the window, of
one or two feet square. Observe the shades on the
outside and inside of a common white cup or bowl,
which make it look round and hollow l ; and then on
folds of white drapery ; and thus gradually you will
be led to observe the more subtle transitions of the
light as it increases or declines on flat surfaces. At
last, when your eye gets keen and true, you will see
gradation on everything in Nature.
But it will not be in your power yet awhile to draw
from any objects in which the gradations are varied
and complicated ; nor will it be a bad omen for your
future progress, and for the use that art is to be
made of by you, if the first thing at which you aim
should be a little bit of sky. So take any narrow
space of evening sky, that you can usually see,
between the boughs of a tree, or between two
chimneys, or through the corner of a pane in the
1 If you can get any pieces of dead white porcelain, not
glazed, they will be useful models.
12 The Elements of Drawing
window you like best to sit at, and try to gradate
a little space of white paper as evenly as that is
gradated — -as tenderly you cannot gradate it without
colour, no, nor with colour either ; but you may do
it as evenly ; or, if you get impatient with your
spots and lines of ink, when you look at the beauty
of the sky, the sense you will have gained of that
beauty is something to be thankful for. But you
ought not to be impatient with your pen and ink ;
for all great painters, however delicate their per-
ception of colour, are fond of the peculiar effect of
light which may be got in a pen-and-ink sketch, and
in a woodcut, by the gleaming of the white paper
between the black lines ; and if you cannot gradate
well with pure black lines, you will never gradate
well with pale ones. By looking at any common
woodcuts, in the cheap publications of the day, you
may see how gradation is given to the sky by leaving
the lines farther and farther apart ; but you must
make your lines as fine as you can, as well as far
apart, towards the light ; and do not try to make
them long or straight, but let them cross irregularly
in any directions easy to your hand, depending on
nothing but their gradation for your effect. On
this point of direction of lines, however, I shall have
to tell you more presently ; in the meantime, do not
trouble yourself about it.
EXERCISE IV
As soon as you find you can gradate tolerably with
the pen, take an H. or HH. pencil, using its point
to produce shade, from the darkest possible to the
palest, in exactly the same manner as the pen,
lightening, however, now with India-rubber instead
of the penknife. You will find that all pale tints of
shade are thus easily producible with great precision
and tenderness, but that you cannot get the same
dark power as with the pen and ink, and that the
On First Practice 13
surface of the shade is apt to become glossy and
metallic, or dirty-looking, or sandy. Persevere,
however, in trying to bring it to evenness with the
fine point, removing any single speck or line that
may be too black, with the point of the knife : you
must not scratch the whole with the knife as you
do the ink. If you find the texture very speckled-
looking, lighten it all over with India-rubber, and
recover it again with sharp, and excessively fine
touches of the pencil point, bringing the parts that are
too pale to perfect evenness with the darker spots.
You cannot use the point too delicately or cunningly
in doing this ; work with it as if you were drawing
the down on a butterfly's wing.
At this stage of your progress, if not before, you
may be assured that some clever friend will come in,,
and hold up his hands in mocking amazement, and
ask you who could set you to that " niggling ; " and
if you persevere in it, you will have to sustain con-
siderable persecution from your artistical acquaint-
ances generally, who will tell you that all good
drawing depends on "boldness." But never mind
them. You do not hear them tell a child, beginning
music, to lay its little hand with a crash among the
keys, in imitation of the great masters : yet they
might, as reasonably as they may tell you to be bold
in the present state of your knowledge. Bold, in the
sense of being undaunted, yes ; but bold in the sense
of being careless, confident, or exhibitory, — no, — no,
and a thousand times no ; for, even if you were not
a beginner, it would be bad advice that made you
bold. Mischief may easily be done quickly, but good
and beautiful work is generally done slowly ; you
will find no boldness in the way a flower or a bird's
wing is painted ; and if Nature is not bold at her
work, do you think you ought to be at yours ? So
never mind what people say, but work with your
pencil point very patiently ; and if you can trust me
in anything, trust me when I tell you, that though
14 The Elements of Drawing
there are all kinds and ways of art, — large work for
large places, small work for narrow places, slow
work for people who can wait, and quick work for
people who cannot, — there is one quality, and, I
think, only one, in which all great and good art
agrees ; — it is all delicate art. Coarse art is always
bad art. You cannot understand this at present,
because you do not know yet how much tender
thought, and subtle care, the great painters put into
touches that at first look coarse ; but, believe me, it
is true, and you will find it is so in due time.
You will be perhaps also troubled, in these first
essays at pencil drawing, by noticing that more
•delicate gradations are got in an instant by a chance
touch of the India-rubber, than by an hour's labour
with the point ; and you may wonder why I tell you
to produce tints so painfully, which might, it appears,
be obtained with ease. But there are two reasons :
the first, that when you come to draw forms, you
must be able to gradate with absolute precision, in
whatever place and direction you wish ; not in any
wise vaguely, as the India-rubber does it : and,
secondly, that all natural shadows are more or less
-mingled with gleams of light. In the darkness of
ground there is the light of the little pebbles or dust ;
in the darkness of foliage, the glitter of the leaves ;
in the darkness of flesh, transparency ; in that of
.a stone, granulation : in every case there is some
mingling of light, which cannot be represented by
the leaden tone which you get by rubbing, or by an
instrument known to artists as the " stump." When
you can manage the point properly, you will indeed
be able to do much also with this instrument, or
with your fingers ; but then you will have to retouch
the flat tints afterwards, so as to put life and light
into them, and that can only be done with the point.
.Labour on, therefore, courageously, with that only.
On First Practice
15
EXERCISE V
When you can manage to tint and gradate tenderly
with the pencil point, get a good large alphabet, and
try to tint the letters into shape with the pencil point.
Do not outline them first, but measure their height
and extreme breadth with the compasses, as a b, a c,
Fig. 3., and then scratch in their shapes gradually ;
the letter A, enclosed within the lines, being in what
Fig. 3.
Turner would have called a "state of forwardness."
Then, when you are satisfied with the shape of the
letter, draw pen and ink lines firmly round the tint,
as at d, and remove any touches outside the limit,
first with the India-rubber, and then with the penknife,
so that all may look clear and right. If you rub out
any of the pencil inside the outline of the letter,
retouch it, closing it up to the inked line. The straight
lines of the outline are all to be ruled1, but the curved
1 Artists who glance at this book may be surprised at this
permission. My chief reason is, that I think it more necessary
that the pupil's eye should be trained to accurate perception
of the relations of curve and right lines, by having the latter
absolutely true, than that he should practise drawing straight
lines. But also, I believe, though I am not quite sure of this,
that he never ought to be able to draw a straight line. I do
1 6 The Elements of Drawing
lines are to be drawn by the eye and hand ; and you
will soon find what good practice there is in getting
the curved letters, such as Bs, Cs, &c, to stand quite
straight, and come into accurate form.
All these exercises are very irksome, and they are
not to be persisted in alone ; neither is it necessary
to acquire perfect power in any of them. An entire
master of the pencil or brush ought, indeed, to be
able to draw any form at once, as Giotto his circle ;
but such skill as this is only to be expected of the
consummate master, having pencil in hand all his life,
and all day long, hence the force of Giotto's proof
of his skill ; and it is quite possible to draw very
beautifully, without attaining even an approximation
to such a power ; the main point being, not that every
line should be precisely what we intend or wish, but
that the line which we intended or wished to draw
should be right. If we always see rightly and mean
rightly, we shall get on, though the hand may
stagger a little ; but if we mean wrongly, or mean
nothing, it does not matter how firm the hand is.
Do not therefore torment yourself because you can-
not do as well as you would like ; but work patiently,
sure that every square and letter will give you a
certain increase of power ; and as soon- as you can
draw your letters pretty well, here is a more amusing
exercise for you.
EXERCISE VI
Choose any tree that you think pretty, which is
nearly bare of leaves, and which you can see against
the sky, or against a pale wall, or other light ground :
it must not be against strong light, or you will find
not believe a perfectly trained hand ever can draw a line with-
out some curvature in it, or some variety of direction. Prout
could draw a straight line, but I do not believe Raphael could,
nor Tintoret. A great draughtsman can, as far as I have
observed, draw every line but a straight one.
On First Practice 17
the looking" at it hurt your eyes ; nor must it be in
sunshine, or you will be puzzled by the lights on the
boughs. But the tree must be in shade ; and the sky
blue, or grey, or dull white. A wholly grey or rainy
day is the best for this practice.
You will see that all the boughs of the tree are
dark against the sky. Consider them as so many
dark rivers, to be laid down in a map with absolute
accuracy ; and, without the least thought about the
roundness of the stems, map them all out in flat shade,
scrawling them in with pencil, just as you did the
limbs of your letters ; then correct and alter them,
rubbing out and out again, never minding how much
your paper is dirtied (only not destroying its surface),
until every bough is exactly, or as near as your
utmost power can bring it, right in curvature and in
thickness. Look at the white interstices between
them with as much scrupulousness as if they were
little estates which you had to survey, and draw maps
of, for some important lawsuit, involving heavy
penalties if you cut the least bit of a corner off any
of them, or gave the hedge anywhere too deep a
curve ; and try continually to fancy the whole tree
nothing but a flat ramification on a white grounds
Do not take any trouble about the little twigs, which-
look like a confused network or mist ; leave them all
out1, drawing only the main branches as far as vou
can see them distinctly, your object at present being
not to draw a tree, but to learn how to do so. When
you have got the thing as nearly right as you can, —
and it is better to make one good study, than twenty
left unnecessarily inaccurate, — take your pen, and!
put a fine outline to all the boughs, as you did to
your letter, taking care, as far as possible, to put the
outline within the edge of the shade, so as not to
1 Or, if you feel able to do so, scratch them in with confused
quick touches, indicating the general shape of the cloud or
mist of twigs round the main branches ; but do not take much
trouble about them.
1 8 The Elements of Drawing
make the boughs thicker : the main use of the outline
is to affirm the whole more clearly ; to do away with
little accidental roughnesses and excrescences, and
especially to mark where boughs cross, or come in
front of each other, as at such points their arrange-
ment in this kind of sketch is unintelligible without
the outline. It may perfectly well happen that in
*-"~*o«
Fig. 4.
Nature it should be less distinct than your outline
will make it ; but it is better in this kind of sketch to
mark the facts clearly. The temptation is always to
be slovenly and careless, and the outline is like a
bridle, and forces our indolence into attention and
precision. The outline should be about the thickness
of that in Fig 4., which represents the ramification of
a small stone pine, only I have not endeavoured to
represent the pencil shading within the outline, as I
On First Practice 19
could not easily express it in a woodcut ; and you
have nothing to do at present with the indication of
foliage above, of which in another place. You may
also draw your trees as much larger than this figure
as you like ; only, however large they may be, keep
the outline as delicate, and draw the branches far
enough into their outer sprays to give quite as slender
ramification as you have in this figure, otherwise you
do not get good enough practice out of them.
You cannot do too many studies of this kind :
every one will give you some new notion about trees :
but when you are tired of tree boughs, take any forms
whatever which are drawn in flat colour, one upon
another ; as patterns on any kind of cloth, or flat
china (tiles, for instance), executed in two colours
only, and practise drawing them of the right shape
and size by the eye, and filling them in with shade of
the depth required.
In doing this, you will first have to meet the diffi-
culty of representing depth of colour by depth of
shade. Thus a pattern of ultramarine blue will have
to be represented by a darker tint of grey than a
pattern of yellow.
And now it is both time for you to begin to learn
the mechanical use of the brush ; and necessary for
you to do so in order to provide yourself with the
gradated scale of colour which you will want. If you
can, by any means, get acquainted with any ordinarily
skilful water-colour painter, and prevail on him to
show you now to lay on tints with a brush, by all
means do so ; not that you are yet, nor for a long
while yet, to begin to colour, but because the brush
is often more convenient than the pencil for laving
on masses or tints of shade, and the sooner vou know
how to manage it as an instrument the better. If,
however, you have no opportunity of seeing how
water-colour is laid on by a workman of any kind,
the following directions will help you : —
20 The Elements of Drawing
EXERCISE VII
Get a shilling cake of Prussian blue. Dip the end
of it in water so as to take up a drop, and rub it in a
white saucer till you cannot rub much more, and the
colour gets dark, thick, and oily-looking. Put two
teaspoonfuls of water to the colour you have rubbed
down, and mix it well up with a camel's-hair brush
about three quarters of an inch long.
Then take a piece of smooth, but not glossy,
Bristol board or pasteboard ; divide it, with your
pencil and rule, into squares as large as those of the
very largest chess-board : they need not be perfect
squares, only as nearly so as you can quickly guess.
Rest the pasteboard on something sloping as much
as an ordinary desk ; then, dipping your brush into
the colour you have mixed, and taking up as much
of the liquid as it will carry, begin at the top of one
of the squares, and lay a pond or runlet of colour
along the top edge. Lead this pond of colour gradu-
ally downwards, not faster at one place than another,
but as if you were adding a row of bricks to a
building, all along (only building down instead of up),
dipping the brush frequently so as to keep the colour
as full in that, and in as great quantity on the paper,
as you can, so only that it does not run down any-
where in a little stream. But if it should, never
mind ; go on quietly with your square till you have
covered it all in. When you get to the bottom, the
colour will lodge there in a great wave. Have ready
a piece of blotting-paper ; dry your brush on it, and
with the dry brush take up the superfluous colour as
you would with a sponge, till it all looks even.
In leading the colour down, you will find your brush
continually go over the edge of the square, or leave
little gaps within it. Do not endeavour to retouch
these, nor take much care about them ; the great
thing is to get the colour to lie smoothly where it
On First Practice 21
reaches, not in alternate blots and pale patches ; try,
therefore, to lead it over the square as fast as possible,
with such attention to your limit as you are able to
give. The use of the exercise is, indeed, to enable
you finally to strike the colour up to the limit with
perfect accuracy ; but the first thing- is to get it even,
the power of rightly striking the edge comes only by
time and practice : even the greatest artists rarely can
do this quite perfectly.
When you have done one square, proceed to do
another which does not communicate with it. When
you have thus done all the alternate squares, as on a
chess-board, turn the pasteboard upside down, begin
again with the first, and put another coat over it, and
so on over all the others. The use of turning the
paper upside down is to neutralise the increase of
darkness towards the bottom of the squares, which
would otherwise take place from the ponding of the
colour.
Be resolved to use blotting-paper, or a piece of rag,
instead of your lips, to dry the brush. The habit of
doing so, once acquired, will save you from much
partial poisoning. Take care, however, always to
draw the brush from root to point, otherwise you
will spoil it. You may even wipe it as you would a
pen when you want it very dry, without doing harm,
provided you do not crush it upwards. Get a good
brush at first, and cherish it ; it will serve you longer
and better than many bad ones.
When you have done the squares all over again, do
them a third time, always trying to keep your edges
as neat as possible. When your colour is exhausted,
mix more in the same proportions, two teaspoonfuls
to as much as you can grind with a drop ; and when
you have done the alternate squares three times over,
as the paper will be getting very damp, and dry
more slowly, begin on the white squares, and bring
them up to the same tint in the same way. The
amount of jagged dark line which then will mark
22 The Elements of Drawing
the limits of the squares will be the exact measure
of your unskilfulness.
As soon as you tire of squares draw circles (with
compasses) ; and then draw straight lines irregu-
larly across circles, and fill up the spaces so produced
between the straight line and the circumference ; and
then draw any simple shapes of leaves, according to
the exercise No. 2., and fill up those, until you can
lay on colour quite evenly in any shape you want.
You will find in the course of this practice, as you
cannot always put exactly the same quantity of
water to the colour, that the darker the colour is,
the more difficult it becomes to lay it on evenly.
Therefore, when you have gained some definite degree
of power, try to fill in the forms required with a full
brush, and a dark tint, at once, instead of laying
several coats one over another ; always taking care
that the tint, however dark, be quite liquid ; and
that, after being laid on, so much of it is absorbed as
to prevent its forming a black line at the edge as it
dries. A little experience will teach you how apt
the colour is to do this, and how to prevent it; not
that it needs always to be prevented, for a great
master in water-colours will sometimes draw a firm
outline, when he wants one, simply by letting the
colour dry in this way at the edge.
When, however, you begin to cover complicated
forms with the darker colour, no rapidity will prevent
the tint from drying irregularly as it is led on from
part to part. You will then find the following
method useful. Lay in the colour very pale and
liquid ; so pale, indeed, that you can only just see
where it is on the paper. Lead it up to all the
outlines, and make it precise in form, keeping it
thoroughly wet everywhere. Then, when it is all in
shape, take the darker colour, and lay some of it
into the middle of the liquid colour. It will spread
gradually in a branchy kind of way, and you may
now lead it up to the outlines already determined,
On First Practice 23
and play it with the brush till it fills its place well ;
then let it dry, and it will be as flat and pure as a
single dash, yet defining all the complicated forms
accurately.
Having thus obtained the power of laying on a
tolerably flat tint, you must try to lay on a gradated
one. Prepare the colour with three or four tea-
spoonfuls of water ; then, when it is mixed, pour
away about two thirds of it, keeping a teaspoonful
of pale colour. Sloping your paper as before, draw
two pencil lines all the way down, leaving a space
between them of the width of a square on your chess-
board. Begin at the top of your paper, between the
lines ; and having struck on the first brushful of
colour, and led it down a little, dip your brush deep
in water, and mix up the colour on the plate quickly
with as much more water as the brush takes up at
that one dip : then, with this paler colour, lead the
tint farther down. Dip in water again, mix the
colour again, and thus lead down the tint, always
dipping in water once between each replenishing of
the brush, and stirring the colour on the plate well,,
but as quickly as you can. Go on until the colour
has become so pale that you cannot see it ; then
wash your brush thoroughly in water, and carry the
wave down a little farther with that, and then absorb
it with the dry brush, and leave it to dry.
If you get to the bottom of your paper before your
colour gets pale, you may either take longer paper,
or begin, with the tint as it was when you left off,
on another sheet ; but be sure to exhaust it to pure
whiteness at last. When all is quite dry, recommence
at the top with another similar mixture of colour, and
go down in the same way. Then again, and then
again, and so continually until the colour at the top
of the paper is as dark as your cake of Prussian blue,
and passes down into pure white paper at the end of
your column, with a perfectly smooth gradation from
one into the other.
24 The Elements of Drawing
You will find at first that the paper gets mottled
or wavy, instead of evenly gradated ; this is because
at some places you have taken up more water in
your brush than at others, or not mixed it thoroughly
on the plate, or led one tint too far before replenishing
with the next. Practice only will enable you to do
it well ; the best artists cannot always get gradations
of this kind quite to their minds ; nor do they ever
leave them on their pictures without after-touching.
As you get more power, and can strike the colour
more quickly down, you will be able to gradate in
less compass x ; beginning with a small quantity of
colour, and adding a drop of water, instead of a
brushful ; with finer brushes, also, you may gradate
to a less scale. But slight skill will enable you to
test the relations of colour to shade as far as is
necessary for your immediate progress, which is to
be done thus : —
Take cakes of lake, of gamboge, of sepia, of
blue-black, of cobalt, and vermilion ; and prepare
gradated columns (exactly as you have done with
the Prussian blue) of the lake and blue-black.2 Cut
a narrow slip, all the way down, of each gradated
colour, and set the three slips side by side ; fasten
them down, and rule lines at equal distances across
all the three, so as to divide them into fifty degrees,
and number the degrees of each, from light to dark,
i, 2, 3, &c. If you have gradated them rightly, the
darkest part either of the red or blue will be nearly
equal in power to the darkest part of the blue-black,
and any degree of the black slip will also, accurately
■enough for our purpose, balance in weight the degree
similarly numbered in the red or the blue slip. Then,
when you are drawing from objects of a crimson or
1 It is more difficult, at first, to get, in colour, a narrow
•gradation than an extended one ; but the ultimate difficulty is,
as with the pen, to make the gradation go far.
2 Of course, all the columns of colour are to be of equal
length.
On First Practice 25
blue colour, if you can match their colour by any
compartment of the crimson or blue in your scales,
the grey in the compartment of the grey scale marked
with the same number is the grey which must re-
present that crimson or blue in your light and
shade drawing.
Next, prepare scales with gamboge, cobalt and
vermilion. You will find that you cannot darken
these beyond a certain point l ; for yellow and scarlet,
so long as they remain yellow and scarlet, cannot ap-
proach to black ; we cannot have, properly speaking,
a dark yellow or dark scarlet. Make your scales of
full yellow, blue, and scarlet, half-way down ; passing
then gradually to white. Afterwards use lake to
darken the upper half of the vermilion and gamboge ;
and Prussian blue to darken the cobalt. You will
thus have three more scales, passing from white
nearly to black, through yellow and orange, through
sky-blue, and through scarlet. By mixing the gamboge
and Prussian blue you may make another with
green ; mixing the cobalt and lake, another with
violet ; the sepia alone will make a forcible brown
one ; and so on, until you have as many scales as
you like, passing from black to white through different
colours. Then, supposing your scales properly
gradated and equally divided, the compartment or
degree No. i. of the grey will represent in chiaroscuro
the No. 1. of all the other colours ; No. 2. of grey the
No. 2. of the other colours, and so on.
It is only necessary, however, in this matter that
you should understand the principle ; for it would
never be possible for you to gradate your scales so
truly as to make them practically accurate and service-
able ; and even if you could, unless you had about
ten thousand scales, and were able to change them
faster than ever juggler changed cards, you could
1 The degree of darkness you can reach with the given
colour is always indicated by the colour of the solid cake in
the box.
26 The Elements of Drawing
not in a day measure the tints on so much as one
side of a frost-bitten apple: but when once you fully
understand the principle, and see how all colours
contain as it were a certain quantity of darkness, or
power of dark relief from white — some more, some
less ; and how this pitch or power of each may be
represented by equivalent values of grey, you will
soon be able to arrive shrewdly at an approximation
by a glance of the eye, without any measuring scale
at all.
You must now go on, again with the pen, drawing
patterns, and any shapes of shade that you think
pretty, as veinings in marble or tortoiseshell, spots
in surfaces of shells, &c, as tenderly as you can, in
the darknesses that correspond to their colours ; and
when you find you can do this successfully, it is time
to begin rounding.
EXERCISE VIII
Go out into your garden, or into the road, and pick
up the first round or oval stone you can find, not
very white, not very dark ; and the smoother it is
the better, only it must not shine. Draw your table
near the window, and put the stone, which I will
suppose is about the size of a in Fig. 5. (it had better
not be much larger), on a piece of not very white
paper, on the table in front of you. Sit so that the
light may come from your left, else the shadow of
the pencil point interferes with your sight of your
work. You must not let the sun fall on the stone,
but only ordinary light : therefore choose a window
which the sun does not come in at. If you can
shut the shutters of the other windows in the room
it will be all the better ; but this is not of much
consequence.
Now, if you can draw that stone, you can draw
anything: I mean, anything that is drawable. Many
things (sea foam, for instance) cannot be drawn at all,
On First Practice
27
only the idea of
them more or less
suggested ; but if
you can draw the
stone rightly, every-
thing within reach
of art is also within
yours.
For all drawing
depends, primarily,
on your power ot
representing
Roundness. If you
can once do that,
all the rest is easy
and straightfor-
ward ; if you can-
not do that,
nothing else that
you may be able
"to do will be of any
use. For Nature
is all made up of
roundnesses ; not
the roundness of
perfect globes, but
of variously curved
surfaces. Boughs \
are rounded, leaves
are rounded, stones
are rounded, clouds
are rounded,
cheeks are round-
ed, and curls are
rounded : there is
no more flatness in
the natural world than there is vacancy. The world
itself is round, and so is all that is in it, more or less,
except human work, which is often very flat indeed.
28 The Elements of Drawing
Therefore, set yourself steadily to conquer that
round stone, and you have won the battle.
Look your stone antagonist boldly in the face.
You will see that the side of it next the window is
lighter than most of the paper ; that the side of it
farthest from the window is darker than the paper ;
and that the light passes into the dark gradually,
while a shadow is thrown to the right on the paper
itself by the stone : the general appearance of things
being more or less as in a, Fig. 5., the spots on the
stone excepted, of which more presently.
Now, remember always what was stated in the
outset, that everything you can see in Nature is seen
only so far as it is lighter or darker than the things
about it, or of a different colour from them. It is
either seen as a patch of one colour on a ground of
another ; or as a pale thing relieved from a dark
thing, or a dark thing from a pale thing. And if you
can put on patches of colour or shade of exactly the
same size, shape, and gradations as those on the
object and its ground, you will produce the appearance
of the object and its ground. The best draughtsmen
— Titian and Paul Veronese themselves — could do no
more than this ; and you will soon be able to get
some power of doing it in an inferior way, if you
once understand the exceeding simplicity of what is
to be done. Suppose you have a brown book on a
white sheet of paper, on a red tablecloth. You have
nothing to do but to put on spaces of red, white, and
brown, in the same shape, and gradated from dark
to light in the same degrees, and your drawing is
done. If you will not look at what you see, if you try
to put on brighter or duller colours than are there, if
you try to put them on with a dash or a blot, or to
cover your paper with " vigorous " lines, or to produce
anything, in fact, but the plain, unaffected, and
finished tranquillity of the thing before you, you need
not hope to get on. Nature will show you nothing
if you set yourself up for her master. But forget
On First Practice 29
yourself, and try to obey her, and you will find
obedience easier and happier than you think.
The real difficulties are to get the refinement of the
forms and the evenness of the gradations. You may
depend upon it, when you are dissatisfied with your
work, it is always too coarse or too uneven. It may
not be wrong- — in all probability is not wrong-, in
any (so-called) great point. But its edges are not true
enough in outline ; and its shades are in blotches, or
scratches, or full of white holes. Get it more tender
and more true, and you will find it is more powerful.
Do not, therefore, think your drawing must be
weak because you have a finely pointed pen in your
hand. Till you can draw with that, you can draw
with nothing ; when you can draw with that, you
can draw with a log of wood charred at the end.
True boldness and power are only to be gained by
care. Even in fencing and dancing, all ultimate ease
depends on early precision in the commencement ;
much more in singing or drawing.
Now, I do not want you to copy Fig. 5., but to
copy the stone before you in the way that Fig. 5. is
done. To which end, first measure the extreme length
of the stone with compasses, and mark that length
on your paper ; then, between the points marked,
leave something like the form of the stone in light,
scrawling the paper all over, round it, as at b, Fig. 5.
You cannot rightly see what the form of the stone
really is till you begin finishing, so sketch it in quite
rudely ; only rather leave too much room for the high
light, than too little : and then more cautiously fill in
the shade, shutting the light gradually up, and putting
in the dark cautiously on the dark side. You need
not plague yourself about accuracy of shape, because,
till you have practised a great deal, it is impossible
for you to draw that shape quite truly, and you must
gradually gain correctness by means of these various
exercises : what you have mainly to do at present is,
to get the stone to look solid and round, not much
30 The Elements of Drawing
minding what its exact contour is — only draw it as
nearly right as you can without vexation ; and you
will get it more right by thus feeling your way to it
in shade, than if you tried to draw the outline at first.
For you can see no outline ; what you see is only a
certain space of gradated shade, with other such
spaces about it ; and those pieces of shade you are
to imitate as nearly as you can, by scrawling the
paper over till you get them to the right shape, with
the same gradations which they have in Nature.
And this is really more likely to be done well, if you
have to fight your way through a little confusion in
the sketch, than if you have an accurately traced
outline. For instance, I was going to draw, beside
a, another effect on the stone ; reflected light bringing
its dark side out from the background : but when I
had laid on the first few touches I thought it would
be better to stop, and let you see how I had begun it,
at b. In which beginning it will be observed that
nothing is so determined but that I can more or less
modify, and add to or diminish the contour as I work
on, the lines which suggest the outline being blended
with the others if I do not want them ; and the having
to fill up the vacancies and conquer the irregularities
of such a sketch will probably secure a higher com-
pletion at last, than if half an hour had been spent in
getting a true outline before beginning.
In doing this, however, take care not to get the
drawing too dark. In order to ascertain what the
shades of it really are, cut a round hole, about half
the size of a pea, in a piece of white paper the colour
of that you use to draw on. Hold this bit of paper
with the hole in it, between you and your stone ; and
pass the paper backwards and forwards, so as to see
the different portions of the stone (or other subject)
through the hole. You will find that, thus, the
circular hole looks like one of the patches of colour
you have been accustomed to match, only changing
in depth as it lets different pieces of the stone be seen
On First Practice 31
through it. You will be able thus actually to match
the colour of the stone, at any part of it, by tinting
the paper beside the circular opening. And you will
find that this opening never looks quite black, but
that all the roundings of the stone are given by
subdued greys.1
You will probably find, also, that some parts ot
the stone, or of the paper it lies on, look luminous
through the opening ; so that the little circle then
tells as a light spot instead of a dark spot. When
this is so, you cannot imitate it, for you have no
means of getting light brighter than white paper :
but by holding the paper more sloped towards the
light, you will find that many parts of the stone,
which before looked light through the hole, then look
dark through it ; and if you can place the paper in
such a position that every part of the stone looks
slightly dark, the little hole will tell always as a spot
of shade, and if your drawing is put in the same light,
you can imitate or match every gradation. You will
be amazed to find, under these circumstances, how
slight the differences of tint are, by which, through
infinite delicacy of gradation, Nature can express
form.
If any part of your subject will obstinately show
itself as a light through the hole, that part you need
not hope to imitate. Leave it white ; you can do no
more.
When you have done the best you can to get the
general form, proceed to finish, by imitating the
texture and all the cracks and stains of the stone as
closely as you can ; and note, in doing this, that
cracks or fissures of any kind, whether between
stones in walls, or in the grain of timber or rocks, or
in any of the thousand other conditions they present,
are never expressible by single black lines, or lines
of simple shadow. A crack must always have its
1 The figure a, Fig. 5., is very dark, but this is to give an
example of all kinds of depths of tint, without repeated figures.
32 The Elements of Drawing
complete system of light and shade, however small
its scale. It is in reality a little ravine, with a dark
or shady side, and light or sunny side, and, usually,
shadow in the bottom. This is one of the instances
in which it may be as well to understand the reason
of the appearance ; it is not often so in drawing, for
the aspects of things are so subtle and confused that
they cannot in general be explained ; and in the
endeavour to explain some, we are sure to lose sight
of others, while the natural overestimate of the
importance of those on which the attention is fixed
causes us to exaggerate them, so that merely scientific
draughtsmen caricature a third part of Nature, and
miss two thirds. The best scholar is he whose eye is
so keen as to see at once how the thing looks, and
who need not therefore trouble himself with any
reasons why it looks so : but few people have this
acuteness of perception ; and to those who are desti-
tute of it, a little pointing out of rule and reason will
be a help, especially when a master is not near them.
I never allow my own pupils to ask the reason of
anything, because, as I watch their work, I can
always show them how the thing is, and what
appearance they are missing in it ; but when a master
is not by to direct the sight, science may, here and
there, be allowed to do so in his stead.
Generally, then, every solid illumined object — for
instance, the stone you are drawing — has a light side
turned towards the light, a dark side turned away
from the light, and a shadow, which is cast on some-
thing else (as by the stone on the paper it is set upon).
You may sometimes be placed so as to see only the
light side and shadow, sometimes only the dark side
and shadow, and sometimes both or either without
the shadow; but in most positions solid objects will
show all the three, as the stone does here.
Hold up your hand with the edge of it towards
you, as you sit now with your side to the window, so
that the flat of your hand is turned to the window.
On First Practice 33
You will see one side of your hand distinctly lighted,
the other distinctly in shade. Here are light side
and dark side, with no seen shadow ; the shadow-
being detached, perhaps on the table, perhaps on the
other side of the room ; you need not look for it at
present.
Take a sheet of note-paper, and holding it edge-
ways, as you hold your hand, wave it up and down
past the side of your hand which is turned from the
light, the paper being of course farther from the
window. You will see, as it passes, a strong gleam
of light strike on your hand, and light it considerably
on its dark side. This light is reflected light. It is
thrown back from the paper (on which it strikes first
in coming from the window) to the surface of your
hand, just as a ball would be if somebody threw it
through the window at the wall and you caught it at
the rebound.
Next, instead of the note-paper, take a red book,
or a piece of scarlet cloth. You will see that the
gleam of light falling on your hand, as you wave the
book, is now reddened. Take a blue book, and you
will find the gleam is blue. Thus every object will
cast some of its own colour back in the light that it
reflects.
Now it is not only these books or papers that
reflect light to your hand : every object in the room
on that side of it reflects some, but more feebly, and
the colours mixing all together form a neutral l light,
which lets the colour of your hand itself be more
distinctly seen than that of any object which reflects
light to it ; but if there were no reflected light, that
side of your hand would look as black as a coal.
Objects are seen therefore, in general, partly by
direct light, and partly by light reflected from the
objects around them, or from the atmosphere and
1 Nearly neutral in ordinary circumstances, but yet with
quite different tones in its neutrality, according to the colours
of the various reflected rays that compose it.
D
34 The Elements of Drawing
clouds. The colour of their light sides depends much
on that of the direct light, and that of the dark sides
on the colours of the objects near them. It is there-
fore impossible to say beforehand what colour an
object will have at any point of its surface, that
colour depending partly on its own tint, and partly
on infinite combinations of rays reflected from other
things. The only certain fact about dark sides is,
that their colour will be changeful, and that a picture
which gives them merely darker shades of the colour
of the light sides must assuredly be bad.
Now, lay your hand flat on the white paper you
are drawing on. You will see one side of each finger
lighted, one side dark, and the shadow of your hand
on the paper. Here, therefore, are the three divisions
of shade seen at once. And although the paper is
white, and your hand of a rosy colour somewhat
darker than white, yet you will see that the shadow
all along, just under the finger which casts it, is
darker than the flesh, and is of a very deep grey.
The reason of this is, that much light is reflected
from the paper to the dark side of your finger, but
very little is reflected from other things to the paper
itself in that chink under your finger.
In general, for this reason, a shadow, or, at any
rate, the part of the shadow nearest the object, is
darker than the dark side of the object. I say in
general, because a thousand accidents may interfere
to prevent its being so. Take a little bit of glass,
as a wine-glass, or the ink-bottle, and play it about
a little on the side of your hand farthest from the
window ; you will presently find you are throwing
gleams of light all over the dark side of your hand,
and in some positions of the glass the reflection from
it will annihilate the shadow altogether, and you will
see your hand dark on the white paper. Now a stupid
painter would represent, for instance, a drinking-
glass beside the hand of one of his figures, and
because he had been taught by rule that " shadow
On First Practice 35
was darker than the dark side," he would never
think of the reflection from the glass, but paint a
dark grey under the hand, just as if no glass were
there. But a great painter would be sure to think of
the true effect, and paint it ; and then comes the
stupid critic, and wonders why the hand is so light
on its dark side.
Thus it is always dangerous to assert anything as
a rule in matters of art ; yet it is useful for you to
remember that, in a general way, a shadow is darker
than the dark side of the thing that casts it, supposing
the colours otherwise the same ; that is to say, when
a white object casts a shadow on a white surface, or
a dark object on a dark surface : the rule will not
hold if the colours are different, the shadow of a
black object on a white surface being, of course, not
so dark, usually, as the black thing casting it. The
only way to ascertain the ultimate truth in such
matters is to look for it ; but, in the meantime, you
will be helped by noticing that the cracks in the
stone are little ravines, on one side of which the light
strikes sharply, while the other is in shade. This
dark side usually casts a little darker shadow at the
bottom of the crack ; and the general tone of the
stone surface is not so bright as the light bank of
the ravine. And, therefore, if you get the surface
of the object of a uniform tint, more or less indicative
of shade, and then scratch out a white spot or streak
in it of any shape ; by putting a dark touch beside
this white one, you may turn it, as you choose, into
either a ridge or an incision, into either a boss or a
cavity. If you put the dark touch on the side of it
nearest the sun, or rather, nearest the place that the
light comes from, you will make it a cut or cavity ; if
you put it on the opposite side, you will make it a ridge
or mound : and the complete success of the effect de-
pends less on depth of shade than on the Tightness of
the drawing ; that is to say, on the evident correspond-
ence of the form of the shadow with the form that
36 The Elements of Drawing
casts it. In drawing rocks, or wood, or anything
irregularly shaped, you will gain far more by a little
patience in following the forms carefully, though
with slight touches, than by laboured finishing of
textures of surface and transparencies of shadow.
When you have got the whole well into shape,
proceed to lay on the stains and spots with great
care, quite as much as you gave to the forms.
Very often, spots or bars of local colour do more to
express form than even the light and shade, and they
are always interesting as the means by which Nature
carries light into her shadows, and shade into her
lights, an art of which we shall have more to say
hereafter, in speaking of composition. Fig. 5. is a
rough sketch of a fossil sea-urchin, in which the
projections of the shell are of black flint, coming
through a chalky surface. These projections form
dark spots in the light ; and their sides, rising out
of the shadow, form smaller whitish spots in the
dark. You may take such scattered lights as these
out with the penknife, provided you are just as
careful to place them rightly, as if you got them
by a more laborious process.
When you have once got the feeling of the way
in which gradation expresses roundness and pro-
jection, you may try your strength on anything
natural or artificial that happens to take your fancy,
provided it be not too complicated in form. I have
asked you to draw a stone first, because any irregu-
larities and failures in your shading will be less
offensive to you, as being partly characteristic of
the rough stone surface, than they would be in a
more delicate subject ; and you may as well go on
drawing rounded stones of different shapes for a
little while, till you find you can really shade
delicately. You may then take up folds of thick
white drapery, a napkin or towel thrown carelessly
on the table is as good as anything, and try to
express them in the same way ; only now you will
On First Practice 37
find that your shades must be wrought with perfect
unity and tenderness, or you will lose the flow of the
folds. Always remember that a little bit perfected is
worth more than many scrawls ; whenever you feel
yourself inclined to scrawl, give up work resolutely,
and do not go back to it till next day. Of course your
towel or napkin must be put on something that may
be locked up, so that its folds shall not be disturbed
till you have finished. If you find that the folds will
not look right, get a photograph of a piece of drapery
(there are plenty now to be bought, taken from the
sculpture of the cathedrals of Rheims, Amiens, and
Chartres, which will at once educate your hand and
your taste), and copy some piece of that ; you will
then ascertain what it is that is wanting in your
studies from nature, whether more gradation, or
greater watchfulness of the disposition of the folds.
Probably for some time you will find yourself failing
painfully in both, for drapery is very difficult to follow
in its sweeps; but do not lose courage, for the greater
the difficulty, the greater the gain in the effort. If
your eye is more just in measurement of form than
delicate in perception of tint, a pattern on the folded
surface will help you. Try whether it does or not :
and if the patterned drapery confuses you, keep for
a time to the simple white one ; but if it helps you,
continue to choose patterned stuffs (tartans and
simple chequered designs are better at first than flow-
ered ones), and even though it should confuse you,
begin pretty soon to use a pattern occasionally, copy-
ing all the distortions and perspective modifications
of it among the folds with scrupulous care.
Neither must you suppose yourself condescending
in doing this. The greatest masters are always fond
of drawing patterns ; and the greater they are, the
more pains they take to do it truly.1 Nor can there
1 If we had any business with the reasons of this, I might
perhaps be able to show you some metaphysical ones for the
enjoyment, by truly artistical minds, of the changes wrought
38 The Elements of Drawing
be better practice at any time, as introductory to
the nobler complication of natural detail. For when
you can draw the spots which follow the folds of a
printed stuff, you will have some chance of following
the spots which fall into the folds of the skin of a
leopard as he leaps ; but if you cannot draw the
manufacture, assuredly you will never be able to
draw the creature. So the cloudings on a piece of
wood, carefully drawn, will be the best introduction
to the drawing of the clouds of the sky, or the waves
of the sea ; and the dead leaf-patterns on a damask
drapery, well rendered, will enable you to disentangle
masterfully the living leaf-patterns of a thorn thicket
or a violet bank.
Observe, however, in drawing any stuffs, or bind-
ings of books, or other finely textured substances, do
not trouble yourself, as yet, much about the wool-
liness or gauziness of the thing; but get it right in
shade and fold, and true in pattern. We shall see,
in the course of after-practice, how the penned lines
may be made indicative of texture ; but at present
attend only to the light and shade and pattern. You
will be puzzled at first by lustrous surfaces, but
a little attention will show you that the expression of
these depends merely on the right drawing of their
light and shade, and reflections. Put a small black
japanned tray on the table in front of some books ;
and you will see it reflects the objects beyond it as in
a little black rippled pond ; its own colour mingling
always with that of the reflected objects. Draw
these reflections of the books properly, making them
dark and distorted, as you will see that they are,
and you will find that this gives the lustre to your
tray. It is not well, however, to draw polished
by light and shade and perspective in patterned surfaces ; but
this is at present not to the point ; and all that you need to
know is that the drawing of such things is good exercise, and
moreover a kind of exercise which Titian, Veronese, Tintoret,
Giorgione, and Turner, all enjoyed, and strove to excel in.
On First Practice 39
objects in general practice ; only you should do one
or two in order to understand the aspect of any
lustrous portion of other things, such as you cannot
avoid ; the gold, for instance, on the edges of books,
or the shining of silk and damask, in which lies a
great part of the expression of their folds. Observe
also that there are very few things which are totally
without lustre ; you will frequently find a light which
puzzles you, on some apparently dull su face, to be
the dim image of another object.
And now, as soon as you can conscientiously assure
me that with the point of the pen or pencil you can
lay on any form and shade you like, I give you leave
to use the brush with one colour, — sepia, or blue-
black, or mixed cobalt and blue-black, or neutral
tint ; and this will much facilitate your study, and
refresh you. But, preliminarily, you must do one or
two more exercises in tinting.
EXERCISE IX
Prepare your colour as before directed. Take a
brush full of it, and strike it on the paper in any
irregular shape ; as the brush gets dry sweep the
surface of the paper with it as if you were dusting
the paper very lightly ; every such sweep of the
brush will leave a number of more or less minute
interstices in the colour. The lighter and faster
every dash the better. Then leave the whole to dry ;
and, as soon as it is dry, with little colour in your
brush, so that you can bring it to a fine point, fill up
all the little interstices one by one, so as to make the
whole as even as you can, and fill in the larger gaps
with more colour, always trying to let the edges of
the first and of the newly applied colour exactly meet,
and not lap over each other. When your new colour
dries, you will find in it places a little paler than the
first. Retouch it therefore, trying to get the whole
to look quite one piece. A very small bit of colour
40 The Elements of Drawing
thus filled up with your very best care, and brought
to look as if it had been quite even from the first,
will give you better practice and more skill than a
great deal filled in carelessly ; so do it with your best
patience, not leaving the most minute spot of white ;
and do not fill in the large pieces first and then go to
the small, but quietly and steadily cover in the whole
up to a marked limit ; then advance a little farther,
and so on ; thus always seeing distinctly what is
done and what undone.
exercise x
Lay a coat of the blue, prepared as usual, over a
whole square of paper. Let it dry. Then another
coat over four-fifths of the square, or thereabouts,
leaving the edge rather irregular than straight, and
let it dry. Then another coat over three-fifths ;
another over two-fifths; and the last over one-fifth ;
so that the square may present the appearance of
gradual increase in darkness in five bands, each
darker than the one beyond it. Then, with the brush
rather dry (as in the former exercise, when filling up
the interstices), try, with small touches, like those
used in the pen etching, only a little broader, to add
shade delicately beyond each edge, so as to lead the
darker tints into the paler ones imperceptibly. By
touching the paper very lightly, and putting a mul-
titude of little touches, crossing and recrossing in
every direction, you will gradually be able to work
up to the darker tints, outside of each, so as quite to
efface their edges, and unite them tenderly with the
next tint. The whole square, when done, should
look evenly shaded from dark to pale, with no bars,
only a crossing texture of touches, something like
chopped straw, over the whole.1
1 The use of acquiring this habit of execution is that you
may be able, when you begin to colour, to let one hue be seen
in minute portions, gleaming between the touches of another.
On First Practice 41
Next, take your rounded pebble ; arrange it in
any light and shade you like ; outline it very loosely
with the pencil. Put on a wash of colour, prepared
very pale, quite flat over all of it, except the highest
light, leaving the edge of your colour quite sharp.
Then another wash, extending only over the darker
parts, leaving the edge of that sharp also, as in
tinting the square. Then another wash over the
still darker parts, and another over the darkest,
leaving each edge to dry sharp. Then, with the
small touches, efface the edges, reinforce the darks,
and work the whole delicately together, as you would
with the pen, till you have got it to the likeness of
the true light and shade. You will find that the
tint underneath is a great help, and that you can
now get effects much more subtle and complete than
with the pen merely.
The use of leaving the edges always sharp is that
you may not trouble or vex the colour, but let it lie
as it falls suddenly on the paper : colour looks much
more lovely when it has been laid on with a dash of
the brush, and left to dry in its own way, than when
it has been dragged about and disturbed ; so that it
is always better to let the edges and forms be a little
wrong, even if one cannot correct them afterwards,
than to lose this fresh quality of the tint. Very
great masters in water colour can lay on the true
forms at once with a dash, and bad masters in water
colour lay on grossly false forms with a dash, and
leave them false ; for people in general, not knowing
false from true, are as much pleased with the appear-
ance of power in the irregular blot as with the pres-
ence of power in the determined one ; but we, in
our beginnings, must do as much as we can with the
broad dash, and then correct with the point, till we
are quite right. We must take care to be right, at
whatever cost of pains ; and then gradually we shall
find we can be right with freedom.
I have hitherto limited you to colour mixed with
42 The Elements of Drawing
two or three teaspoonfuls of water ; but, in finishing
your light and shade from the stone, you may, as
you efface the edge of the palest coat towards the
light, use the colour for the small touches with more
and more water, till it is so pale as not to be per-
ceptible. Thus you may obtain a perfect gradation to
the light. And in reinforcing the darks, when they
are very dark, you may use less and less water. If
you take the colour tolerably dark on your brush, only
always liquid (not pasty), and dash away the super-
fluous colour on blotting paper, you will find that,
touching the paper very lightly with the dry brush,
you can, by repeated touches, produce a dusty kind
of bloom, very valuable in giving depth to shadow ;
but it requires great patience and delicacy of hand to
do this properly. You will find much of this kind of
work in the grounds and shadows of William Hunt's
drawings.1
As you get used to the brush and colour, you will
gradually find out their ways for yourself, and get
the management of them. Nothing but practice will
do this perfectly ; but you will often save yourself
much discouragement by remembering what I have
so often asserted, — that if anything goes wrong, it
is nearly sure to be refinement that is wanting, not
force ; and connexion, not alteration. If you dislike
the state your drawing is in, do not lose patience
with it, nor dash at it, nor alter its plan, nor rub it
desperately out, at the place you think wrong ; but
look if there are no shadows you can gradate more
perfectly ; no little gaps and rents you can fill ; no
forms you can more delicately define : and do not
rush at any of the errors or incompletions thus dis-
cerned, but efface or supply slowly, and you will
soon find your drawing take another look. A very
useful expedient in producing some effects, is to wet
the paper, and then lay the colour on it, more or less
wet, according to the effect you want. You will
1 William Hunt, of the Old Water-colour Society.
On First Practice 43
soon see how prettily it gradates itself as it dries ;
when dry, you can reinforce it with delicate stippling1
when you want it darker. Also, while the colour
is still damp on the paper, by drying your brush
thoroughly, and touching the colour with the brush
so dried, you may take out soft lights with great
tenderness and precision. Try all sorts of experi-
ments of this kind, noticing how the colour behaves ;
but remembering always that your final results must
be obtained, and can only be obtained, by pure work
with the point, as much as in the pen drawing.
You will find also, as you deal with more and
more complicated subjects, that Nature's resources
in light and shade are so much richer than yours,
that you cannot possibly get all, or anything like all,
the gradations of shadow in any given group. When
this is the case, determine first to keep the broad
masses of things distinct : if, for instance, there is a
green book, and a white piece of paper, and a black
inkstand in the group, be sure to keep the white
paper as a light mass, the green book as a middle
tint mass, the black inkstand as a dark mass ; and
do not shade the folds in the paper, or corners of
the book, so as to equal in depth the darkness of the
inkstand. The great difference between the masters
of light and shade, and imperfect artists, is the power
of the former to draw so delicately as to express
form in a dark-coloured object with little light, and
in a light-coloured object with little darkness ; and
ii is better even to leave the forms here and there
unsatisfactorily rendered than to lose the general
relations of the great masses. And this, observe,
not because masses are grand or desirable things in
your composition (for with composition at present
you have nothing whatever to do), but because it is
a. fact that things do so present themselves to the eyes
of men, and that we see paper, book, and inkstand
as three separate things, before we see the wrinkles,
or chinks, or corners of any of the three. Under-
44 The Elements of Drawing
stand, therefore, at once, that no detail can be as
strongly expressed in drawing as it is in the reality ;
and strive to keep all your shadows and marks and
minor markings on the masses, lighter than they
appear to be in Nature ; you are sure otherwise to
get them too dark. You will in doing this find that
you cannot get the projection of things sufficiently
shown; but never mind that; there is no need that
they should appear to project, but great need that
their relations of shade to each other should be pre-
served. All deceptive projection is obtained by partial
exaggeration of shadow ; and whenever you see it,
you may be sure the drawing is more or less bad: a
thoroughly fine drawing or painting will always show
a slight tendency towards flatness.
Observe, on the other hand, that however white
an object may be, there is always some small point
of it whiter than the rest. You must therefore have
a slight tone of grey over everything in your picture
except on the extreme high lights ; even the piece of
white paper, in your subject, must be toned slightly
down, unless (and there are a thousand chances to
one against its being so) it should all be turned so as
fully to front the light. By examining the treatment
of the white objects in any pictures accessible to you
by Paul Veronese or Titian, you will soon understand
this.1
1 At Marlborough House, among the four principal examples
of Turner's later water-colour drawing, perhaps the most neg-
lected is that of fishing-boats and fish at sunset. It is one of
his most wonderful works, though unfinished. If you examine
the larger white fishing-boat sail, you will find it has a little
spark of pure white in its right-hand upper corner, about as
large as a minute pin's head, and that all the surface of the
sail is gradated to that focus. Try to copy this sail once or
twice, and you will begin to understand Turner's work. Simi-
larly, the wing of the Cupid in Correggio's large picture in the
National Gallery is focused to two little grains of white at the
top of it. The points of light On the white flower in the
wreath round the head of the dancing child-faun in Titian's
Bacchus and Ariadne, exemplify the same thing.
On First Practice 45
As soon as you feel yourself capable of expressing
with the brush the undulations of surfaces and the
relations of masses, you may proceed to draw more
complicated and beautiful things.1 And first, the
boughs of trees, now not in mere dark relief, but in
full rounding. Take the first bit of branch or stump
that comes to hand, with a fork in it ; cut off the
ends of the forking branches, so as to leave the whole
only about a foot in length ; get a piece of paper the
same size, fix your bit of branch in some place where
its position will not be altered, and draw it thoroughly,
in all its light and shade, full size ; striving, above
all things, to get an accurate expression of its struc-
ture at the fork of the branch. When once you have
mastered the tree at its armpits, you will have little
more trouble with it.
Always draw whatever the background happens
to be, exactly as you see it. Wherever you have
fastened the bough, you must draw whatever is
behind it, ugly or not, else you will never know
whether the light and shade are right ; they may
appear quite wrong to you, only for want of the
background. And this general law is to be observed
in all your studies : whatever you draw, draw com-
pletely and unalteringly, else you never know if what
you have done is right, or whether you could have
done it rightly had you tried. There is nothing visible
out of which you may not get useful practice.
Next, to put the leaves on your boughs. Gather
a small twig with four or five leaves on it, put it into
water, put a sheet of light-coloured or white paper
behind it, so that all the leaves may be relieved in
dark from the white field ; then sketch in their dark
shape carefully with pencil as you did the complicated
boughs, in order to be sure that all their masses and
interstices are right in shape before you begin shading,
1 I shall not henceforward nutnbev the exercises recom-
mended ; as they are distinguished only by increasing difficulty
of subiect, not by difference of method.
46 The Elements of Drawing
and complete ?.s far as you can with pen and ink, in
the manner of Fig. 6., which is a young- shoot of lilac.
You will probably, in spite of all your pattern
drawings, be at first puzzled by leaf foreshortening ;
especially because the look
of retirement or projection
depends not so much on the
perspective of the leaves
themselves as on the double
sight of the two eyes. Now
there are certain artifices
by which good painters can
partly conquer this diffi-
culty ; as slight exagger-
ations of force or colour in
the nearer parts, and of
obscurity in the more dis-
tant ones ; but you must
not attempt anything of
this kind. When you are
first sketching the leaves,
shut one of your eyes, fix
a point in the background,
to bring the point of one of
the leaves against, and so
sketch the whole bough as
you see it in a fixed posi-
tion, looking with one eye
only. Your drawing never
can be made to look like
the object itself, as you see
that object with both eyes 1,
but it can be made perfectly like the object seen
with one, and you must be content when you have
got a resemblance on these terms.
1 If you understand the principle of the stereoscope you will
know why ; if not, it does not matter ; trust me for the truth
of the statement, as I cannot explain the principle without
diagrams and much loss of time.
On First Practice 47
In order to get clearly at the notion of the thing
to be done, take a single long leaf, hold it with its
point towards you, and as flat as you can, so as to
see nothing of it but its thinness, as if you wanted
to know how thin it was ; outline it so. Then slope
it down gradually towards you, and watch it as it
lengthens out to its full length, held perpendicularly
down before you. Draw it in three or four different
positions between these extremes, with its ribs as
they appear in each position, and you will soon find
out how it must be.
Draw first only two or three of the leaves ; then
larger clusters ; and practise, in this way, more and
more complicated pieces of bough and leafage, till you
find you can master the most difficult arrangements,
not consisting of more than ten or twelve leaves. You
will find as you do this, if you have an opportunity of
visiting any gallery of pictures, that you take a much
more lively interest than before in the work of the
great masters ; you will see that very often their best
backgrounds are composed of little more than a few
sprays of leafage, carefully studied, brought against
the distant sky ; and that another wreath or two
form the chief interest of their foregrounds. If you
live in London you may test your progress accurately
by the degree of admiration you feel for the leaves
of vine round the head of the Bacchus, in Titian's
Bacchus and Ariadne. All this, however, will not
enable you to draw a mass of foliage. You will find,
on looking at any rich piece of vegetation, that it is
only one or two of the nearer clusters that you can
by any possibility draw in this complete manner.
The mass is too vast, and too intricate, to be thus
dealt with.
You must now therefore have recourse to some
confused mode of execution, capable of expressing
the confusion of Nature. And, first, you must under-
stand what the character of that confusion is. If
you look carefully at the outer sprays of any tree at
48 The Elements of Drawing
twenty or thirty yards' distance, you will see them
defined against the sky in masses, which, at first,
look quite definite ; but if you examine them, you
will see, mingled with the real shapes of leaves, many
indistinct lines, which are, some of them, stalks of
leaves, and some, leaves seen with the edge turned
towards you, and coming into sight in a broken way ;
for, supposing the real leaf shape to be as at a, Fig.
7., this, when removed some yards from the eye, will
appear dark against the sky, as at b ; then, when
removed some yards farther still, the stalk and point
disappear altogether, the middle of the leaf becomes
c <,"■"-»*
Fig. 7.
little more than aline ; and the result is the condition
at c, only with this farther subtlety in the look of it,
inexpressible in the woodcut, that the stalk and point
of the leaf, though they have disappeared to the eye,
have yet some influence in checking the light at the
places where they exist, and cause a slight dimness
about the part of the leaf which remains visible, so
that its perfect effect could only be rendered by two
layers of colour, one subduing the sky tone a little,
the next drawing the broken portions of the leaf,
as at c, and carefully indicating the greater darkness
of the spot in the middle, where the under side of the
leaf is.
This is the perfect theory of the matter. In practice
we cannot reach such accuracy ; but we shall be able
On First Practice
49
to render the general look of the foliage satisfactorily
by the following mode of practice.
Gather a spray of any tree, about a foot or eighteen
inches long. Fix it firmly by the stem in anything
that will support it steadily ; put it about eight feet
away from you, or ten if you are far-sighted. Put a
sheet of not very white paper behind it, as usual.
Then draw very carefully, first placing them with
pencil, and then filling them up with ink, every leaf-
Fig. 8.
mass and stalk of it in simple black profile, as you
see them against the paper : Fig. 8. is a bough of
Phillyrea so drawn. Do not be afraid of running the
leaves into a black mass when they come together ;
this exercise is only to teach you what the actual
shapes of such masses are when seen against the sky.
Make two careful studies of this kind of one bough
of every common tree,— oak, ash, elm, birch, beech,
&c. ; in fact, if you are good, and industrious, you
will make one such study carefully at least three times
50 The Elements of Drawing
a week, until you have examples of every sort of tree
and shrub you can get branches of. You are to
make two studies of each bough, for this reason, —
all masses of foliage have an upper and under surface,
and the side view of them, or profile, shows a wholly
different organisation of branches from that seen in
the view from above. They are generally seen more
or less in profile, as you look at the whole tree, and
Nature puts her best composition into the profile
arrangement. But the view from above or below
occurs not unfrequently, also, and it is quite
necessary you should draw it if you wish to under-
stand the anatomy of the tree. The difference
Fig. 9.
between the two views is often far greater than you
could easily conceive. For instance, in Fig. 9., a is
the upper view, and b the profile, of a single spray of
Phillyrea. Fig. 8. is an intermediate view of a larger
bough ; seen from beneath, but at some lateral
distance also.
When you have done a few branches in this
manner, take one of the drawings, and put it first a
yard away from you, then a yard and a half, then two
yards ; observe how the thinner stalks and leaves
gradually disappear, leaving only a vague and slight
darkness where they were, and make another study
of the effect at each distance, taking care to draw
nothing more than you really see, for in this consists
all the difference between what would be merely a
miniature drawing of the leaves seen near, and a/////-
On First Practice 51
size drawing of the same leaves at a distance. By full
size, I mean the size which they would really appear
of if their outline were traced through a pane of glass
held at the same distance from the eye at which you
mean to hold your drawing. You can always ascertain
this full size of any object by holding your paper
upright before you, at the distance from your eye at
which you wish your drawing to be seen. Bring
its edge across the object you have to draw, and
mark upon this edge the points where the outline
of the object crosses, or goes behind, the edge of the
paper. You will always find it, thus measured,
smaller than you supposed.
When you have made a few careful experiments
of this kind on your own drawings, (which are
better for practice, at first, than the real trees,
because the black profile in the drawing is quite
stable, and does not shake, and is not confused by
sparkles of lustre on the leaves,) you may try the
extremities of the real trees, only not doing much at a
time, for the brightness of the sky will dazzle and
perplex your sight. And this brightness causes, I
believe, some loss of the outline itself ; at least the
chemical action of the light in a photograph extends
much within the edges of the leaves, and, as it were,
eats them away, so that no tree extremity, stand it
ever so still, nor any other form coming against
bright sky, is truly drawn by a photograph ; and if
you once succeed in drawing a few sprays rightly, you
will find the result much more lovely and interesting
than any photograph can be.
All this difficulty, however, attaches to the rendering
merely the dark form of the sprays as they come
against the sky. Within those sprays, and in the
heart of the tree, there is a complexity of a much
more embarrassing kind ; for nearly all leaves have
some lustre, and all are more or less translucent
(letting light through them) ; therefore, in any
given leaf, besides the intricacies of its own proper
52 The Elements of Drawing
shadows and foreshortenings, there are three series
of circumstances which alter or hide its forms.
First, shadows cast on it by other leaves, — often
very forcibly. Secondly, light reflected from its
lustrous surface, sometimes the blue of the sky,
sometimes the white of clouds, or the sun itself
flashing like a star. Thirdly, forms and shadows
of other leaves, seen as darknesses through the
translucent parts of the leaf; a most important
element of foliage effect, but wholly neglected by
landscape artists in general.
The consequence of all this is, that except now
and then by chance, the form of a complete leaf is
never seen ; but a marvellous and quaint confusion,
very definite, indeed, in its evidence of direction of
growth, and unity of action, but wholly indefinable
and inextricable, part by part, by any amount of
patience. You cannot possibly work it out in fac-
simile, though you took a twelvemonth's time to a
tree ; and you must therefore try to discover some
mode of execution which will more or less imitate,
by its own variety and mystery, the variety and
mystery of Nature, without absolute delineation of
detail.
Now I have led you to this conclusion by observa-
tion of tree form only, because in that the thing to
be proved is clearest. But no natural object exists
which does not involve in some part or parts of it
this inimitableness, this mystery of quantity, which
needs peculiarity of handling and trick of touch to
express it completely. If leaves are intricate, so is
moss, so is foam, so is rock cleavage, so are fur and
hair, and texture of drapery, and of clouds. And
although methods and dexterities of handling are
wholly useless if you have not gained first the
thorough knowledge of the form of the thing ; so that
if you cannot draw a branch perfectly, then much
less a tree ; and if not a wreath of mist perfectly, much
less a flock of clouds ; and if not a single grass blade
On First Practice 53
perfectly, much less a grass bank ; yet having once
got this power over decisive form, you may safely —
and must, in order to perfection of work — carry out
your knowledge by every aid of method and dexterity
of hand.
But, in order to find out what method can do, you
must now look at Art as well as at Nature, and see
what means painters and engravers have actually
employed for the expression of these subtleties.
Whereupon arises the question, what opportunity'
you have to obtain engravings ? You ought, if it is
at all in your power, to possess yourself of a certain
number of good examples of Turner's engraved
works : if this be not in your power, you must just
make the best use you can of the shop windows, or
of any plates of which you can obtain a loan. Very
possibly, the difficulty of getting sight of them may
stimulate you to put them to better use. But,
supposing your means admit of your doing so,
possess yourself, first, of the illustrated edition either
of Rogers's Italy or Rogers's Poems, and then of
about a dozen of the plates named in the annexed
lists. The prefixed letters indicate the particular
points deserving your study in each engraving.1 Be
1 If you can, get first the plates marked with a star. The
letters mean as follows : —
a stands for architecture, including distant grouping of towns,
cottages, &c.
c clouds, including mist and aerial effects.
/ foliage.
g ground, including low hills, when not rocky.
1 effects of light.
m mountains, or bold rocky ground.
p power of general arrangement and effect.
q quiet water.
r running or rough water ; or rivers, even if calm, when their
line of flow is beautifully marked.
From the England Series,
acfr. Arundel. fmr. Bolton Abbey.
a/7. Ashby de la Zouche. fg>~. Buckfastlei^h.*
alqr. Barnard Castle.* alp. Caernarvon.
54 The Elements of Drawing
sure, therefore, that your selection includes, at all
events, one plate marked with each letter — of course
the plates marked with two or three letters are, for
the most part, the best. Do not get more than
twelve of these plates, nor even all the twelve at first.
For the more engravings you have, the less attention
you will pay to them. It is a general truth, that the
enjoyment derivable from art cannot be increased
in quantity, beyond a certain point, by quantity of
possession ; it is only spread, as it were, over a
C lq.
Castle Upnor.
afl.
Colchester.
lq.
Cowes.
cfp.
Dartmouth Cove.
c I q.
Flint Castle.*
afgl.
Knaresborough.*
afp.
Lancaster.
clmr.
Lancaster Sands
asf-
Launceston.
cflr.
Leicester Abbey.
fr.
Ludlow.
mpq.
F,
Arona.
1 m.
Drachenfells.
fl.
Marly.*
afl.
a I q.
Margate.
Orford.
cp.
f
Plymouth.
Powis Castle.
1 mq.
Prudhoe Castle.
' ' Im r.
Chain bridge over
Tees.*
in r.
High Force of Tees.
afq.
Trematon.
mq.
Ulleswater.
fm.
Valle Crucis.
From the Keepsake.
p. St. Germain en Laye.
Ipq. Florence.
I m. Ballyburgh Ness.*
From the Bible Series,
fm. Mount Lebanon. &cg- Joppa.
m. Rock of Moses at clpq. Solomon's Pools.*
Sinai. a I. Santa Saba.
aim. Jericho. a I. Pool of Bethesda.
From Scott's Works,
p r. Melrose. c m. Glencoe.
fr. Dryburgh.* cm. Loch Coriskin.
a I. Caerlaverock.
From the " Rivers of France."
a q. Chateau of Amboise, dral and rainbow,
with large bridge on avenue on left,
right. ap. Rouen Cathedral.
// r. Rouen, looking down fp. Pont de l'Arche.
the river, poplars on fl/>- View on the Seine,
right.* with avenue.
a I p. Rouen, with cathe- a c p. Bridge of Meulan.
c g p r. Caudebec*
On First Practice 55
larger surface, and very often dulled by finding ideas
repeated in different works. Now, for a beginner, it
is always better that his attention should be con-
centrated on one or two good things, and all his
enjoyment founded on them, than that he should look
at many, with divided thoughts. He has much to
discover ; and his best way of discovering it is to
think long over few things, and watch them earnestly.
It is one of the worst errors of this age to try to
know and to see too much : the men who seem to
know everything, never in reality know anything
rightly. Beware of hand-book knowledge.
These engravings are, in general, more for you to
look at than to copy ; and they will be of more use
to you when we come to talk of composition, than
they are at present ; still, it will do you a great deal
of good, sometimes to try how far you can get their
delicate texture, or gradations of tone ; as your pen-
and-ink drawing will be apt to incline too much to a
scratchy and broken kind of shade. For instance,
the texture of the white convent wall, and the drawing
of its tiled roof, in the vignette at p. 227. of Rogers's
Poems, is as exquisite as work can possibly be ; and
it will be a great and profitable achievement if you can
at all approach it. In like manner, if you can at all
imitate the dark distant country at p. 7., or the sky
at p. 80., of the same volume, or the foliage at pp.
12. and 144., it will be good gain ; and if you can
once draw the rolling clouds and running river at p. 9.
of the " Italy," or the city in the vignette of Aosta at
p. 25., or the moonlight at p. 223., you will find that
even Nature herself cannot afterwards very terribly
puzzle you with her torrents, or towers, or moon-
light.
You need not copy touch for touch, but try to get
the same effect. And if you feel discouraged by the
delicacy required, and begin to think that engraving
is not drawing, and that copying it cannot help you
to draw, remember that it differs from common
56 The Elements of Drawing
drawing only by the difficulties it has to encounter.
You perhaps have got into a careless habit of think-
ing that engraving is a mere business, easy enough
when one has got into the knack of it. On the
contrary, it is a form of drawing more difficult than
common drawing, by exactly so much as it is more
difficult to cut steel than to move the pencil over
paper. It is true that there are certain mechanical
aids and methods which reduce it at certain stages
either to pure machine work, or to more or less a
habit of hand and arm ; but this is not so in the
foliage you are trying to copy, of which the best and
prettiest parts are always etched — that is, drawn
with a fine steel point and free hand : only the line
made is white instead of black, which renders it
much more difficult to judge of what you are about.
And the trying to copy these plates will be good for
you, because it will awaken you to the real labour
and skill of the engraver, and make you understand
a little how people must work, in this world, who
have really to do anything in it.
Do not, however, suppose that I give you the
engraving as a model — far from it ; but it is neces-
sary you should be able to do as well 1 before you
think of doing better, and you will find many little
helps and hints in the various work of it. Only
remember that all engravers' foregrounds are bad ;
whenever you see the peculiar wriggling parallel
lines of modern engravings become distinct, you
must not copy ; nor admire : it is only the softer
masses, and distances ; and portions of the foliage
in the plates marked /, which you may copy. The
best for this purpose, if you can get it, is the
"Chain bridge over the Tees," of the England
series ; the thicket on the right is very beautiful and
instructive, and very like Turner. The foliage in
1 As well ; — not as minutely : the diamond cuts finer lines
on the steel than you can draw on paper with your pen ; but
you must be able to get tones as even, and touches as firm.
On First Practice 57
the "Ludlow" and " Powis " is also remarkably
good.
Besides these line engravings, and to protect you
from what harm there is in their influence, you are
to provide yourself, if possible, with a Rembrandt
etching, or a photograph of one (of figures, not
landscape). It does not matter of what subject, or
whether a sketchy or finished one, but the sketchy
ones are generally cheapest, and will teach you most.
Copy it as well as you can, noticing especially that
Rembrandt's most rapid lines have steady purpose ;
and that they are laid with almost inconceivable
precision when the object becomes at all interest-
ing. The " Prodigal Son," " Death of the Virgin,"
"Abraham and Isaac," and such others, containing
incident and character rather than chiaroscuro, will
be the most instructive. You can buy one ; copy
it well ; then exchange it, at little loss, for another ;
and so, gradually, obtain a good knowledge of his
system. Whenever you have an opportunity of
examining his work at museums, &c, do so with
the greatest care, not looking at many things, but
a long time at each. You must also provide your-
self, if possible, with an engraving of Albert Durer's.
This you will not be able to copy ; but you must
keep it beside you, and refer to it as a standard of
precision in line. If you can get one with a wing in
it, it will be best. The crest with the cock, that
with the skull and satyr, and the "Melancholy,"
are the best you could have, but any will do. Per-
fection in chiaroscuro drawing lies between these
two masters, Rembrandt and Durer. Rembrandt
is often too loose and vague ; and Durer has little
or no effect of mist or uncertainty. If you can see
anywhere a drawing by Leonardo, you will find it
balanced between the two characters ; but there are
no engravings which present this perfection, and
your style will be best formed, therefore, by alternate
study of Rembrandt and Durer. Lean rather to
58 The Elements of Drawing
Durer ; it is better, for amateurs, to err on the side
of precision than on that of vagueness : and though,
as I have just said, you cannot copy a Durer, yet
try every now and then a quarter of an inch square
or so, and see how much nearer you can come ; you
cannot possibly try to draw the leafy crown of the
"Melancholia" too often.
If you cannot get either a Rembrandt or a Durer,
you may still learn much by carefully studying any
of George Cruikshank's etchings, or Leech's wood-
cuts in Punch, on the free side ; with Alfred Rethel's
and Richter's l on the severe side. But in so doing
you will need to notice the following points :
When either the material (as the copper or wood)
or the time of an artist, does not permit him to make
a perfect drawing, — that is to say, one in which
no lines shall be prominently visible, — and he is
reduced to show the black lines, either drawn by the
pen, or on the wood, it is better to make these lines
help, as far as may be, the expression of texture
and form. You will thus find many textures, as of
cloth or grass or flesh, and many subtle effects of
light, expressed by Leech with zigzag or crossed or
curiously broken lines ; and you will see that Alfred
Rethel and Richter constantly express the direction
and rounding of surfaces by the direction of the lines
which shade them. All these various means of
expression will be useful to you, as far as you can
learn them, provided you remember that they are
merely a kind of shorthand ; telling certain facts,
not in quite the right way, but in the only possible
way under the conditions : and provided in any after
use of such means, you never try to show your own
dexterity ; but only to get as much record of the
object as you can in a given time ; and that you
continually make efforts to go beyond such short-
hand, and draw portions of the objects rightly.
1 See, for account of these plates, the Appendix on " Works
to be studied."
On First Practice
59
And touching this question of direction of lines
as indicating that of surface, observe these few-
points :
If lines are to be distinctly shown, it is better that,
so far as they can indicate anything by their direction,
they should explain rather than oppose the general
character of the object. Thus, in the piece of wood-
cut from Titian, Fig. 10., the lines are serviceable by
expressing, not only the shade of the trunk, but partly
also its roundness, and the flow of its grain. And
Fig. io.
Albert Durer, whose work was chiefly engraving, sets
himself always thus to make his lines as valuable
as possible ; telling much by them, both of shade
and direction of surface : and if you were always to
be limited to engraving on copper (and did not want
to express effects of mist or darkness, as well as deli-
cate forms), Albert Durer's way of work would be the
best example for you. But, inasmuch as the perfect
way of drawing is by shade without lines, and the
great painters always conceive their subject as com-
plete, even when they are sketching it most rapidly,
you will find that, when they are not limited in
means, they do not much trust to direction of line, but
60 The Elements of Drawing
will often scratch in the shade of a rounded surface
with nearly straight lines, that is to say, with the
easiest and quickest lines possible to themselves.
When the hand is free,
the easiest line for it
to draw is one inclin-
ing- from the left up-
wards to the right, or
vice versa, from the
right downwards to the
left ; and when done
very quickly, the line
is hooked a little at
the end by the effort
at return to the next.
Hence, you will always
find the pencil, chalk,
or pen sketch of a very
great master full of
these kind of lines;
and even if he draws
carefully, you will find
him using simple
straight lines from left
to right, when an
inferior master would
have used curved
ones. Fig. n. is a
fair facsimile of
part of a sketch of
Raphael's, which
exhibits these
characters very
distinctly. Even
the careful draw-
ings of Leonardo
da Vinci are shaded most commonly with straight
lines ; and you may always assume it as a point
increasing the probability of a drawing being by a
Fig. ii.
On First Practice 61
great master if you find rounded surfaces, such as
those of cheeks or lips, shaded with straight lines.
But you will also now understand how easy it
must be for dishonest dealers to forge or imitate
scrawled sketches like Figure n., and pass them for
the work of great masters ; and how the power of
determining the genuineness of a drawing depends
entirely on your knowing the facts of the object
drawn, and perceiving whether the hasty handling
is all conducive to the expression of those truths.
In a great man's work, at its fastest, no line is
thrown away, and it is not by the rapidity, but the
economy of the execution that you know him to be
great. Now to judge of this economy, you must
know exactly what he meant to do, otherwise you
cannot of course discern how far he has done it ;
that is, you must know the beauty and nature of
the thing he was drawing. All judgment of art thus
finally founds itself on knowledge of Nature.
But farther observe, that this scrawled, or economic,
or impetuous execution is never affectedly impetuous.
If a great man is not in a hurry, he never pretends to
be ; if he has no eagerness in his heart, he puts none
into his hand ; if he thinks his effect would be better
got with two lines, he never, to show his dexterity,
tries to do it with one. Be assured, therefore (and
this is a matter of great importance), that you will
never produce a great drawing by imitating the exe-
cution of a great master. Acquire his knowledge and
share his feelings, and the easy execution will fall
from your hand as it did from his ; but if you merely
scrawl because he scrawled, or blot because he
blotted, you will not only never advance in power,
but even' able draughtsman, and every judge whose
opinion is worth having, will know you for a cheat,
and despise you accordingly.
Again, observe respecting the use of outline :
All merely outlined drawings are bad, for the
simple reason, that an artist of any power can alwrays
62 The Elements of Drawing
do more, and tell more, by quitting- his outlines occa-
sionally, and scratching in a few lines for shade, than
he can by restricting himself to outline only. Hence
the fact of his so restricting himself, whatever may
be the occasion, shows him to be a bad draughts-
man, and not to know how to apply his power econo-
mically. This hard law, however, bears only on
drawings meant to remain in the state in which
you see them ; not on those which were meant to be
proceeded with, or for some mechanical use. It is
sometimes necessary to draw pure outlines, as an
incipient arrangement of a composition, to be filled
up afterwards with colour, or to be pricked through
and used as patterns or tracings ; but if, with no
such ultimate object, making the drawing wholly
for its own sake, and meaning it to remain in
the state he leaves it, an artist restricts himself to
outline, he is a bad draughtsman, and his work is
bad. There is no exception to this law. A good
artist habitually sees masses, not edges, and can in
every case make his drawing more expressive (with
any given quantity of work) by rapid shade than by
contours ; so that all good work whatever is more or
less touched with shade, and more or less interrupted
as outline.
Hence, the published works of Retsch, and all
the English imitations of them, and all outline en-
gravings from pictures, are bad work, and only serve
to corrupt the public taste. And of such outlines,
the worst are those which are darkened
O-* in some part of their course by way of
Qj expressing the dark side, as Flaxman's
Q^^ from Dante, and such others ; because
an outline can only be true so long as it
accurately represents the form of the
Fig 12 given object with one of its edges. Thus,
the outline a and the outline b, Fig. 12.,
are both true outlines of a ball ; because, however
thick the line may be, whether we take the interior
On First Practice 63
or exterior edge of it, that edge of it always
draws a true circle. But c is a false outline of a
ball, because either the inner or outer edge of
the black line must be an untrue circle, else the line
could not be thicker in one place than another.
Hence all " force," as it is called, is gained by
falsification of the contours ; so that no artist whose
eye is true and fine could endure to look at it. It
does indeed often happen that a painter, sketching
rapidly, and trying again and again for some line
which he cannot quite strike, blackens or loads the
first line by setting others beside and across it ; and
then a careless observer supposes it has been thick-
ened on purpose : or, sometimes also, at a place
where shade is afterwards to enclose the form, the
painter will strike a broad dash of this shade beside
his outline at once, looking as if he meant to thicken
the outline ; whereas this broad line is only the first
instalment of the future shadow, and the outline is
really drawn with its inner edge. And thus, far from
good draughtsmen darkening the lines which turn
away from the light, the tendency with them is rather
to darken them towards the light, for it is there
in general that shade will ultimately enclose them.
The best example of this treatment that I know is
Raphael's sketch, in the Louvre, of the head of the
angel pursuing Heliodorus, the one that shows part
of the left eye ; where the dark strong lines which
terminate the nose and forehead towards the light
are opposed to tender and light ones behind the ear,
and in other places towards the shade. You will
see in Fig. n. the same principle variously exem-
plified ; the principal dark lines, in the head and
drapery of the arms, being on the side turned to the
light.
All these refinements and ultimate principles,
however, do not affect your drawing for the present.
You must try to make your outlines as equal as
possible ; and employ pure outline only for the two
64 The Elements of Drawing
following purposes : either (i.) to steady your hand,
as in Exercise II., for if you cannot draw the line
itself, you will never be able to terminate your shadow
in the precise shape required, when the line is absent ;
or (2.) to give you shorthand memoranda of forms,
when you are pressed for time. Thus the forms of
distant trees in groups are defined, for the most part,
by the light edge of the rounded mass of the nearer
one being shown against the darker part of the
Fig. 13.
rounded mass of a more distant one ; and to draw
this properly, nearly as much work is required to
round each tree as to round the stone in Fig. 5.
Of course you cannot often get time to do this ;
but if you mark the terminal line of each tree as
is done by Durer in Fig. 13., you will get a most
useful memorandum of their arrangement, and a
very interesting drawing. Only observe in doing
this, you must not, because the procedure is a quick
one, hurry that procedure itself. You will find, on
copying that bit of Durer, that every one of his lines
is firm, deliberate, and accurately descriptive as far
On First Practice 65
as it goes. It means a bush of such a size and such
a shape, definitely observed and set down ; it con-
tains a true " signalement " of every nut-tree, and
apple-tree, and higher bit of hedge, all round that
village. If you have not time to draw thus carefully,
do not draw at all — you are merely wasting your
work and spoiling your taste. When you have had
four or five years' practice you may be able to make
Fig. 14.
useful memoranda at a rapid rate, but not yet ; ex-
cept sometimes of light and shade, in a way of which
I will tell you presently. And this use of outline,
note farther, is wholly confined to objects which have
edges or limits. You can outline a tree or a stone,
when it rises against another tree or stone ; but you
cannot outline folds in drapery, or waves in water ;
if these are to be expressed at all it must be by
some sort of shade, and therefore the rule that no
good drawing can consist throughout of pure out-
line remains absolute. You see, in that woodcut
of Durer's, his reason for even limiting himselt so
much to outline as he has, in those distant woods and
66 The Elements of Drawing
plains, is that he may leave them in bright light, to
be thrown out still more by the dark sky and the
dark village spire : and the scene becomes real and
sunny only by the addition of these shades.
Understanding, then, thus much of the use of
outline, we will go back to our question about tree
drawing left unanswered at page 52.
We were, you remember, in pursuit of mys-
tery among the leaves.
Now, it is quite easy to
obtain mystery and dis-
order, to any extent ; but
the difficulty is to keep
organization in the midst
of mystery. And you will
never succeed in doing this
unless you lean always to
the definite side, and allow
yourself rarely to become
quite vague, at least
through all your early
practice. So, after your
single groups of leaves,
your first step must be to
conditions like Figs. 14.
and 15., which are careful
facsimiles of two portions
of a beautiful woodcut of
Durer's, the "Flight into
Egypt." Copy these carefully, — never mind how
little at a time, but thoroughly ; then trace the
Durer, and apply it to your drawing, and do not
be content till the one fits the other, else your
eye is not true enough to carry you safely through
meshes of real leaves. And in the course of doing
this, you will find that not a line nor dot of
Durer's can be displaced without harm ; that all
add to the effect, and either express something, or
illumine something, or relieve something. If, after-
On First Practice
67
wards, you copy any of the pieces of modern tree
drawing, of which so many rich examples are given
constantly in our cheap illustrated periodicals (any of
the Christmas numbers of last year's Illustrated Neu<s
or Times are full of them), you will see that, though
good and forcible general effect is produced, the lines
Fig. 16.
are thrown in by thousands without special attention,
and might just as well go one way as another, so only
that there be enough of them to produce all together
a well-shaped effect of intricacy : and you will find
that a little careless scratching about with vour pen
will bring you very near the same result without an
effort ; but that no scratching of pen, nor anv fortu-
nate chance, nor anything but downright skill and
68 The Elements of Drawing
thought, will imitate so much as one leaf of Durer's.
Yet there is considerable intricacy and glittering
confusion in the interstices of those vine leaves of his,
as well as of the grass.
When you have got familiarised to his firm manner,
you may draw from Nature as much as you like in
the same way ; and when you are tired of the intense
care required for this, you may fall into a little more
easy massing of the leaves, as in Fig. 10. (p. 59.)
This is facsimiled from an engraving after Titian,
but an engraving not quite first-rate in manner, the
leaves being a little too formal ; still, it is a good
enough model for your times of rest ; and when you
cannot carry the thing even so far as this, you may
sketch the forms of the masses, as in Fig. 16.1, taking
care always to have thorough command over your
hand ; that is, not to let the mass take a free shape
because your hand ran glibly over the paper, but
because in nature it has actually a free and noble
shape, and you have faithfully followed the same.
And now that we have come to questions of noble
shape, as well as true shape, and that we are going
to draw from nature at our pleasure, other consider-
ations enter into the business, which are by no means
confined to first practice, but extend to all practice ;
these (as this letter is long enough, I should think,
to satisfy even the most exacting of correspondents)
I will arrange in a second letter ; praying you only
to excuse the tiresomeness of this first one — tire-
someness inseparable from directions touching the
beginning of any art, — and to believe me, even
though I am trying to set you to dull and hard
work,
Very faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.
1 This sketch is not of a tree standing on its head, though it
looks like it. You will find it explained presently.
LETTER II
SKETCHING FROM NATURE
My dear Reader, — The work we have already
gone through together has, I hope, enabled you to
draw with fair success, either rounded and simple
masses, like stones, or complicated arrangements of
form, like those of leaves ; provided only these masses
or complexities will stay quiet for you to copy, and do
not extend into quantity so great as to baffle your
patience. But if we are now to go out to the fields,
and to draw anything like a complete landscape,
neither of these conditions will any more be observed
for us. The clouds will not wait while we copy their
heaps or clefts ; the shadows will escape from us as
we try to shape them, each, in its stealthy minute
march, still leaving light where its tremulous edge
had rested the moment before, and involving in
eclipse objects that had seemed safe from its influ-
ence ; and instead of the small clusters of leaves
which we could reckon point by point, embarrassing
enough even though numerable, we have now leaves
as little to be counted as the sands of the sea, and~
restless, perhaps, as its foam.
In all that we have to do now, therefore, direct
imitation becomes more or less impossible. It is
always to be aimed at so far as it is possible ; and
when you have time and opportunity, some portions
of a landscape may, as you gain greater skill, be
rendered with an approximation almost to mirrored
portraiture. Still, whatever skill you may reach,
there will always be need of judgment to choose, and
of speed to seize, certain things that are principal or
fugitive ; and you must give more and more effort
daily to the observance of characteristic points, and
the attainment of concise methods.
69
70 The Elements of Drawing
I have directed your attention early to foliage for
two reasons. First, that it is always accessible as a
study ; and secondly, that its modes of growth pre-
sent simple examples of the importance of leading
or governing lines. It is by seizing these leading
lines, when we cannot seize all, that likeness and
expression are given to a portrait, and grace and a
kind of vital truth to the rendering of every natural
form. I call it vital truth, because these chief lines
are always expressive of the past history and present
action of the thing. They show in a mountain, first,
how it was built or heaped up ; and secondly, how it
is now being worn away, and from what quarter the
wildest storms strike it. In a tree, they show what
kind of fortune it has had to endure from its child-
hood : how troublesome trees have come in its way,
and pushed it aside, and tried to strangle or starve
it ; where and when kind trees have sheltered it, and
grown up lovingly together with it, bending as it
bent ; what winds torment it most ; what boughs of
it behave best, and bear most fruit ; and so on. In
a wave or cloud, these leading lines show the run of
the tide and of the wind, and the sort of change
which the water or vapour is at any moment endur-
ing in its form, as it meets shore, or counter-wave,
or melting sunshine. Now remember, nothing dis-
tinguishes great men from inferior men more than
their always, whether in life or in art, knowing the way
things are going. Your dunce thinks they are standing
still, and draws them all fixed ; your wise man sees
the change or changing in them, and draws them so,
— the animal in its motion, the tree in its growth, the
cloud in its course, the mountain in its wearing away.
Try always, whenever you look at a form, to see the
lines in it which have had power over its past fate
and will have power over its futurity. Those are its
awful lines ; see that you seize on those, whatever
else you miss. Thus, the leafage in Fig. 16. (p. 67.)
grew round the root of a stone pine, on the brow of
Sketching from Nature 71
a crag' at Sestri near Genoa, and all the sprays of it
are thrust away in their first budding by the great rude
root, and spring out in every direction round it, as
water splashes when a heavy stone is thrown into it.
Then, when they have got clear of the root, they
begin to bend up again ; some of them, being little
stone pines themselves, have a great notion of grow-
ing upright, if they can ; and this struggle of theirs
to recover their straight road towards the sky, after
being obliged to grow sideways in their early years,
is the effort that will mainly influence their future
destiny, and determine if they are to be crabbed,
forky pines, striking from that rock of Sestri, whose
clefts nourish them, with bared red lightning of angry
M
Fig. 17.
arms towards the sea ; or if they are to be goodly
and solemn pines, with trunks like pillars of temples,
and the purple burning of their branches sheathed
in deep globes of cloudy green. Those, then, are
their fateful lines ; see that you give that spring and
resilience, whatever you leave ungiven : depend upon
it, their chief beauty is in these.
So in trees in general, and bushes, large or small,
you will notice that, though the boughs spring irre-
gularly and at various angles, there is a tendency in
all to stoop less and less as they near the top of the
tree. This structure, typified in the simplest possible
terms at c, Fig. 17., is common to all trees that I
know of, and it gives them a certain plumy char-
acter and aspect of unity in the hearts of their
72 The Elements of Drawing
branches, which are essential to their beauty. The
stem does not merely send off a wild branch here and
there to take its own way, but all the branches share
in one great fountain-like impulse ; each has a curve
and a path to take which fills a definite place, and
each terminates all its minor branches at its outer
Fig. 18.
extremity, so as to form a great outer curve, whose
character and proportion are peculiar for each species;
that is to say, the general type or idea of a tree is
not as a, Fig. 17., but as 3, in which, observe, the
boughs all carry their minor divisions right out to
the bounding curve ; not but that smaller branches,
t>y thousands, terminate in the heart of the tree, but
the idea and main purpose in every branch are to
carry all its child branches well out to the air and
light, and let each of them, however small, take its
part in filling the united flow of the bounding curve,
so that the type of each separate bough is again not
a, but b, Fig. 18. ; approximating, that is to say, so
Sketching from Nature 73
far to the structure of a plant of broccoli as to throw
the great mass of spray and leafage out to a rounded
surface ; therefore beware of getting into a careless
habit of drawing boughs with successive sweeps of
the pen or brush, one hanging to the other, as in Fig.
19. If you look at the tree-boughs in any painting of
Wilson's you will see this structure, and nearly every
other that is to be avoided, in their intensest types.
You will also notice that Wilson never conceives a
tree as a round mass, but flat, as if it had been
pressed and dried. Most people in drawing pines
seem to fancy, in the same way, that the boughs
come out only on two sides of the trunk, instead of
all round it : always, therefore, take more pains in
trying to draw the boughs of trees that grow towards
you than those that go off to the sides ; anybody can
draw the latter, but the foreshortened ones are not
so easy. It will help you in drawing them to observe
that in most trees the ramification of each branch,
though not of the tree itself, is more or less flattened,
and approximates, in its position, to the look of a hand
held out to receive something, or shelter something.
If you take a looking-glass, and hold your hand
before it slightly hollowed, with the palm upwards,
and the fingers open, as if you were going to support
the base of some great bowl, larger than you could
easily hold ; and sketch your hand as you see it in
the glass with the points of the fingers towards you ;
it will materially help you in understanding the way
trees generally hold out their hands: and if then you
will turn yours with its palm downwards, as if you
were going to try to hide something, but with the
fingers expanded, you will get a good type of the
action of the lower boughs in cedars and such other
spreading trees.
Fig. 20. will give you a good idea of the simplest
way in which these and other such facts can be
rapidly expressed ; if you copy it carefully, you will
be surprised to find how the touches all group
74 The Elements of Drawing
Fig. 20.
Sketching from Nature 75
together, in expressing the plumy toss of the tree
branches, and the springing of the bushes out of the
bank, and the undulation of the ground : note the
careful drawing of the footsteps made by the climbers
of the little mound on the left.1 It is facsimiled
from an etching of Turner's, and is as good an
example as you can have of the use of pure and
firm lines ; it will also show you how the particular
action in foliage, or anything else to which you wish
to direct attention, may be intensified by the adjuncts.
The tall and upright trees are made to look more tall
and upright still, because their line is continued below
by the figure of the farmer with his stick ; and the
rounded bushes on the bank are made to look more
rounded because their line is continued in one broad
sweep by the black dog and the boy climbing the
wall. These figures are placed entirely with this
object, as we shall see more fully hereafter when we
come to talk about composition ; but, if you please,
we will not talk about that yet awhile. What I have
been telling you about the beautiful lines and action
of foliage has nothing to do with composition, but
only with fact, and the brief and expressive representa-
tion of fact. But there will be no harm in your look-
ing forward, if you like to do so, to the account, in
Letter III., of the " Law of Radiation," and reading
what is said there about tree growth : indeed it would
in some respects have been better to have said it here
than there, only it would have broken up the account
of the principles of composition somewhat awkwardly.
Now, although the lines indicative of action are not
always quite so manifest in other things as in trees,
a little attention will soon enable you to see that there
are such lines in everything. In an old house roof, a
bad observer and bad draughtsman will only see and
draw the spotty irregularity of tiles or slates all
over ; but a good draughtsman will see all the bends
of the under timbers, where they are weakest and
1 It is meant, I believe, for " Salt Hill."
76 The Elements of Drawing
the weight is telling on them most, and the tracks of
the run of the water in time of rain, where it runs
off fastest, and where it lies long and feeds the moss ;
and he will be careful, however few slates he draws,
to mark the way they bend together towards those
hollows (which have the future fate of the roof in
them), and crowd gradually together at the top of
the gable, partly diminishing in perspective, partly,
perhaps, diminished on purpose (they are so in most
English old houses) by the slate-layer. So in ground,
there is always the direction of the run of the water
to be noticed, which rounds the earth and cuts it
into hollows ; and, generally, in any bank or height
worth drawing, a trace of bedded or other internal
structure besides. The figure 20. will give you some
idea of the way in which such facts may be expressed
by a few lines. Do you not feel the depression in the
ground all down the hill where the footsteps are, and
how the people always turn to the left at the top,
losing breath a little, and then how the water runs
down in that other hollow towards the valley, behind
the roots of the trees?
Now, I want you in your first sketches from
nature to aim exclusively at understanding and repre-
senting these vital facts of form ; using the pen —
not now the steel, but the quill — firmly and steadily,
never scrawling with it, but saying to yourself
before you lay on a single touch, — "that leaf is
the main one, that bough is the guiding one, and this
touch, so long, so broad, means that part of it," —
point or side or knot, as the case may be. Resolve
always, as you look at the thing, what you will take,
and what miss of it, and never let your hand run
away with you, or get into any habit or method of
touch. If you want a continuous line, your hand
should pass calmly from one end of it to the other
without a tremor ; if you want a shaking and broken
line, your hand should shake, or break off, as easily
as a musician's finger shakes or stops on a note :
Sketching from Nature 77
only remember this, that there is no general way of
doing any thing ; no recipe can be given you for so
much as the drawing of" a cluster of grass. The
grass may be ragged and stiff, or tender and flowing ;
sunburnt and sheep-bitten, or rank and languid ;
fresh or dry ; lustrous or dull : look at it, and try to
draw as it is, and don't think how somebody "told
you to do grass." So a stone may be round or
angular, polished or rough, cracked all over like an
ill-glazed teacup, or as united and broad as the
breast of Hercules. It may be as flaky as a wafer,
as powdery as a field puff-ball ; it may be knotted
like a ship's hawser, or kneaded like hammered iron,
or knit like a Damascus sabre, or fused like a glass
bottle, or crystallised like hoar-frost, or veined like
a forest leaf : look at it, and don't try to remember
how anybody told you to " do a stone."
As soon as you find that your hand obeys you
thoroughly, and that you can render any form with
a firmness and truth approaching that of Turner's or
Durer's work l, you must add a simple but equally
careful light and shade to your pen drawing, so as
to make each study as complete as possible : for
which you must prepare yourself thus. Get, if you
have the means, a good impression of one plate ot
Turner's Liber Studiorum ; if possible, one of the
subjects named in the note below.2 If you cannot
1 I do not mean that you can approach Turner or Durer in
their strength, that is to say, in their imagination or power ol
design. But you may approach them, by perseverance, in truth
of manner.
2 The followinf are the most desirable plates :
Grande Chartreuse. Morpeth.
iEsacus anu Hesperie. Calais Pier.
Cephalus and Procr-\ Pembury Mill.
Source of Arveron. ', Little Devil's Bridge.
Ben Arthur. River Wye {not Wye and Se-
Watermill. , vern).
Hindhead Hill. <t,f Holy Island.
Hedging and Ditching. n Clyde.
Dumblane Abbey. Lauffenbourg.
73 The Elements of Drawing
obtain, or even borrow for a little while, any of these
engravings, you must use a photograph instead (how,
Blair Athol. Raglan. (Subject with quiet
Alps from Grenoble. brook, trees, and castle on
the right.)
If you cannot get one of these, anv of the others will be
serviceable, except only the twelve following, which are quite
useless : —
i. Scene in Italy, with goats on a walled road, and trees
above.
2. Interior of church.
3. Scene with bridge, and trees above ; figures on left, one
playing a pipe.
4. Scene with figure playing on tambourine.
5. Scene on Thames with high trees, and a square tower of
a church seen through them.
6. Fifth Plague of Egypt.
7. Tenth Plague of Egypt.
8. Rivaulx Abbey.
9. Wye and Severn.
10. Scene with castle in centre, cows under trees on the
left.
11. Martello Towers.
12. Calm.
It is very unlikely that you should meet with one of the
original etchings ; if you should, it will be a drawing-master
in itself alone, for it is not only equivalent to a pen-and-ink
drawing by Turner, but to a very careful one : only observe,
the Source of Arveron, Raglan, and Dumblane were not etched
by Turner ; and the etchings of those three are not good foi
separate study, though it is deeply interesting to see how
Turner, apparently provoked at the failure of the beginnings
in the Arveron and Raglan, took the plates up himself, and
either conquered or brought into use the bad etching by his
marvellous engraving. The Dumblane was, however, well
etched by Mr. Lupton, and beautifully engraved by him. The
finest Turner etching is of an aqueduct with a stork standing
in a mountain stream, not in the published series ; and next to
it, are the unpublished etchings of the Via Mai t and Crowhurst.
Turner seems to have been so fond of these plates that he kept
retouching and finishing them, and never '.nade up his mind to
let them go. The Via Mala is certainly. u the state in which
Turner left it, the finest of the whole series : its etching is, as
I said, the best after that of the aqueduic. Figure 20., above,
is part of another fine unpublished exiling, " Windsor, from
Salt Hill." Of the published etch;rj,*s the finest are the Ben
Arthur, /Esaeus, Cephalus, and'jStone Pines, with the Girl
Sketching from Nature 79
I will tell you presently) ; but, if you can get the
Turner, it will be best. You will see that it is com-
posed of a firm etching in line, with mezzotint shadow
laid over it. You must first copy the etched part of
it accurately ; to which end put the print against the
window, and trace slowly with the greatest care every
black line ; retrace this on smooth drawing-paper ;
and, finally, go over the whole with your pen, looking
at the original plate always, so that if you err at all,
it may be on the right side, not making a line which
is too curved or too straight already in the tracing.
more curved or more straight, as you go over it And
in doing this, never work after you are tired, nor to
"get the thing done," for if it is badly done, it will
be of no use to you. The true zeal and patience of
a quarter of an hour are better than the sulky and
inattentive labour of a whole day. If you have not
made the touches right at the first going over with
the pen, retouch them delicately, with little ink in
your pen, thickening or reinforcing them as they
need : you cannot give too much care to the fac-
simile. Then keep this etched outline by you, in
order to study at your ease the way in which
Turner uses his line as preparatory for the sub-
sequent shadow 1 ; it is only in getting the two
separate that you will be able to reason on this.
Next, copy once more, though for the fourth time,
any part of this etching which you like, and put on
the light and shade with the brush, and any brown
colour that matches that of the plate 2 ; working it
with the point of the brush as delicately as if you
were drawing with pencil, and dotting and cross-
hatching as lightly as you can touch the paper, till
washing at a Cistern ; the three latter are the more generally
instructive. Hindhead Hill, Isis, Jason, and Morpeth, are also
very desirable.
1 You will find n.ore notice of this point in the account of
Harding's tree-drawing, a little farther on.
2 The impressions vary so much in colour that no brown can
be specified.
80 The Elements of Drawing
you get the gradations of Turner's engraving. In
this exercise, as in the former one, a quarter of an
inch worked to close resemblance of the copy is
worth more than the whole subject carelessly done.
Not that in drawing afterwards from nature, you are
to be obliged to finish every gradation in this way,
but that, once having fully accomplished the drawing
something rightly, you will thenceforward feel and aim
at a higher perfection than you could otherwise have
conceived, and the brush will obey you, and bring
out quickly and clearly the loveliest results, with a
submissiveness which it would have wholly refused
if you had not put it to severest work. Nothing is
more strange in art than the way that chance and
materials seem to favour you, when once you have
thoroughly conquered them. Make yourself quite
independent of chance, get your results in spite of
it, and from that day forward all things will somehow
fall as you would have them. Show the camel's-hair,
and the colour in it, that no bending nor blotting are
of any use to escape your will ; that the touch and
the shade shall finally be right, if it costs you a
vear's toil ; and from that hour of corrective con-
viction, said camel's-hair will bend itself to all your
wishes, and no blot will dare to transgress its ap-
pointed border. If you cannot obtain a print from
the Liber Studiorum, get a photograph1 of some
general landscape subject, with high hills and a
village, or picturesque town, in the middle distance,
and some calm water of varied character (a stream
with stones in it, if possible), and copy any part of
it you like, in this same brown colour, working, as I
have just directed you to do from the Liber, a great
deal with the point of the brush. You are under a
twofold disadvantage here, however ; first, there are
portions in every photograph too delicately done for
you at present to be at all able to copy ; and,
1 You had better get such a photograph, even though you
have a Liber print as well.
Sketching from Nature 81
secondly, there are portions always more obscure
or dark than there would be in the real scene, and
involved in a mystery which you will not be able,
as yet, to decipher. Both these characters will be
advantageous to you for future study, after you have
gained experience, but they are a little against you
in early attempts at tinting ; still you must fight
through the difficulty, and get the power of pro-
ducing delicate gradations with brown or grey, like
those of the photograph.
Now observe ; the perfection of work would be
tinted shadow, like photography, witlwut any ob-
scurity or exaggerated darkness ; and as long as
your effect depends in anywise on visible lines, your
art is not perfect, though it may be first-rate of its
kind. But to get complete results in tints merely,
requires both long time and consummate skill ; and
you will find that a few well-put pen lines, with a tint
dashed over or under them, get more expression of
facts than you could reach in any other way, by the
same expenditure of time. The use of the Liber
Studiorum print to you is chiefly as an example of
the simplest shorthand of this kind, a shorthand
which is yet capable of dealing with the most subtle
natural effects ; for the firm etching gets at the ex-
pression of complicated details, as leaves, masonry,
textures of ground, &c, while the overlaid tint
enables you to express the most tender distances
of sky, and forms of playing light, mist, or cloud.
Most of the best drawings by the old masters are
executed on this principle, the touches of the pen
being useful also to give a look of transparency to
shadows, which could not otherwise be obtained but
by great finish of tinting ; and if you have access to
any ordinarily good public gallery, or can make
friends of any printsellers who have folios either of
old drawings, or facsimiles of them, you will not be
at a loss to find some example of this unity of pen
with tinting. Multitudes of photographs also are
G
82 The Elements of Drawing
now taken from the best drawing's by the old masters,
and I hope that our Mechanics' Institutes, and other
societies organized with a view to public instruction,
will not fail to possess themselves of examples of
these, and to make them accessible to students of
drawing in the vicinity ; a single print from Turner's
Liber, to show the unison of tint with pen etching,
and the "St. Catherine," lately photographed by
Thurston Thompson from Raphael's drawing in the
Louvre, to show the unity of the soft tinting of the
stump with chalk, would be all that is necessary, and
would, I believe, be in many cases more serviceable
than a larger collection, and certainly than a whole
gallery of second-rate prints. Two such examples
are peculiarly desirable, because all other modes of
drawing, with pen separately, or chalk separately,
or colour separately, may be seen by the poorest
student in any cheap illustrated book, or in shop
windows. But this unity of tinting with line he can-
not generally see but by some special enquiry, and
in some out of the way places he could not find a
single example of it. Supposing that this should be
so in your own case, and that you cannot meet with
any example of this kind, try to make the matter out
alone, thus :
Take a small and simple photograph ; allow your-
self half an hour to express its subjects with the pen
only, using some permanent liquid colour instead of
ink, outlining its buildings or trees firmly, and laying
in the deeper shadows, as you have been accustomed
to do in your bolder pen drawings ; then, when this
etching is dry, take your sepia or grey, and tint it
over, getting now the finer gradations of the photo-
graph ; and, finally, taking out the higher lights with
penknife or blotting-paper. You will soon find what
can be done in this way ; and by a series of experi-
ments you may ascertain for yourself how far the
pen may be made serviceable to reinforce shadows,
mark characters of texture, outline unintelligible
Sketching from Nature 83
masses, and so on. The more time you have, the
more delicate you may make the pen drawing, blend-
ing it with the tint ; the less you have, the more
distinct you must keep the two. Practise in this
way from one photograph, allowing yourself some-
times only a quarter of an hour for the whole thing,
sometimes an hour, sometimes two or three hours ;
in each case drawing the whole subject in full depth
of light and shade, but with such degree of finish in
the parts as is possible in the given time. And this
exercise, observe, you will do well to repeat frequently,
whether you can get prints and drawings as well as
photographs, or not.
And now at last, when you can copy a piece of
Liber Studiorum, or its photographic substitute,
faithfully, you have the complete means in your
power of working from nature on all subjects that
interest you, which you should do in four different
ways.
First. When you have full time, and your subject
i§ one that will stay quiet for you, make perfect light
and shade studies, or as nearly perfect as you can,
with grey or brown colour of any kind, reinforced
and defined with the pen.
Secondly. When your time is short, or the subject
is so rich in detail that you feel you cannot complete
it intelligibly in light and shade, make a hasty study
of the effect, and give the rest of the time to a
Dureresque expression of the details. If the subject
seems to you interesting, and there are points about
it which you cannot understand, try to get five spare
minutes to go close up to it, and make a nearer
memorandum ; not that you are ever to bring the
details of this nearer sketch into the farther one, but
that you may thus perfect your experience of the
aspect of things, and know that such and such a
look of a tower or cottage at five hundred yards off
means that sort of tower or cottage near ; while,
also, this nearer sketch will be useful to prevent any
84 The Elements of Drawing
future misinterpretation of your own work. If you
have time, however far your light and shade study in
the distance may have been carried, it is always well,
for these reasons, to make also your Dureresque and
your near memoranda ; for if your light and shade
drawing be good, much of the interesting detail must
be lost in it, or disguised.
Your hasty study of effect may be made most
easily and quickly with a soft pencil, dashed over
when done with one tolerably deep tone of grey,
which will fix the pencil. While this fixing colour
is wet, take out the higher lights with the dry brush ;
and, when it is quite dry, scratch out the highest
lights with the penknife. Five minutes, carefully
applied, will do much by these means. Of course
the paper is to be white. I do not like studies on
grey paper so well ; for you can get more gradation
by the taking off your wet tint, and laying it on
cunningly a little darker here and there, than you
can with body-colour white, unless you are consum-
mately skilful. There is no objection to your making
your Dureresque memoranda on grey or yellow paper,
and touching or relieving them with white ; only, do
not depend much on your white touches, nor make
the sketch for their sake.
Thirdly. When you have neither time for careful
study nor for Dureresque detail, sketch the outline
with pencil, then dash in the shadows with the brush
boldly, trying to do as much as you possibly can at
once, and to get a habit of expedition and decision ;
laying more colour again and again into the tints as
they dry, using every expedient which your practice
has suggested to you of carrying out your chiaroscuro
in the manageable and moist material, taking the
colour off here with the dry brush, scratching out
lights in it there with the wooden handle of the
brush, rubbing it in with your fingers, drying it off
with your sponge, &c. Then, when the colour is
in, take your pen and mark the outline characters
Sketching from Nature 85
vigorously, in the manner of the Liber Studiorum.
This kind of study is> very convenient for carrying
away pieces of effect which depend not so much
on refinement as on complexity, strange shapes of
involved shadows, sudden effects of sky, &c. ; and it
is most useful as a safeguard against any too servile
or slow habits which the minute copying may induce
in vou ; for although the endeavour to obtain velocity
merely for velocity's sake, and dash for display's
sake, is as baneful as it is despicable ; there are a
Fig. 21.
velocity and a dash which not only are compatible
with perfect drawing, but obtain certain results which
cannot be had otherwise. And it is perfectly safe
for you to study occasionally for speed and decision,
while your continual course of practice is such as
to ensure your retaining an accurate judgment and
a tender touch. Speed, under such circumstances,
is rather fatiguing than tempting ; and you will find
yourself always beguiled rather into elaboration than
negligence.
Fourthly. You will find it of great use, whatever
kind of landscape scenery you are passing through,
to get into the habit of making memoranda of the
86 The Elements of Drawing
shapes of shadows. You will find that many objects
of no essential interest in themselves, and neither
deserving a finished study, nor a Dureresque one,
may yet become of singular value in consequence of
the fantastic shapes of their shadows ; for it happens
often, in distant effect, that the shadow is by much a
more important element than the substance. Thus,
in the Alpine bridge, Fig. 21., seen within a few yards
of it, as in the figure, the
- arrangement of timbers to
which the shadows are owing
is perceptible ; but at half a
mile's distance, in bright sun-
light, the timbers would not
be seen ; and a good painter's
expression of the bridge would
be merely the large spot, and
the crossed bars, of pure grey;
wholly without indication of
their cause, as in Fig. 22. a ;
and if we saw it at still greater
distances, it would appear, as
in Fig. 22. b and c, diminishing
at last to a strange, unintel-
ligible, spider-like spot of grey
on the light hill-side. A per-
fectly great painter, through-
out his distances, continually
reduces his objects to these
shadow abstracts ; and the singular, and to many
persons unaccountable, effect of the confused touches
in Turner's distances, is owing chiefly to this
thorough accuracy and intense meaning of the
shadow abstracts.
Studies of this kind are easily made when you are
in haste, with an F. or HB. pencil : it requires some
hardness of the point to ensure your drawing delicately
enough when the forms of the shadows are very subtle ;
they are sure to be so somewhere, and are generally
Fig. 22.
Sketching from Nature 87
so everywhere. The pencil is indeed a very precious
instrument after you are master of the pen and brush,
for the pencil, cunningly used, is both, and will draw
a line with the precision of the one and the gradation
of the other ; nevertheless, it is so unsatisfactory to
see the sharp touches, on which the best of the detail
depends, getting gradually deadened by time, or to
find the places where force was wanted look shiny,
and like a fire-grate, that I should recommend rather
the steady use of the pen, or brush, and colour,
whenever time admits of it ; keeping only a small
memorandum-book in the breast-pocket, with its
well-cut, sheathed pencil, ready for notes on passing
opportunities : but never being without this.
Thus much, then, respecting the manner in which
you are at first to draw from nature. But it may
perhaps be serviceable to you, if I also note one cr
two points respecting your choice of subjects for
study, and the best special methods of treating some
of them ; for one of by no means the least difficulties
which you have at first to encounter is a peculiar
instinct, common, as far as I have noticed, to all
beginners, to fix on exactly the most unmanageable
feature in the given scene. There are many things
in every landscape which can be drawn, if at all, only
by the most accomplished artists ; and I have noticed
that it is nearly always these which a beginner will
dash at ; or, if not these, it will be something which,
though pleasing to him in itself, is unfit for a picture,
and in which, when he has drawn it, he will have
little pleasure. As some slight protection against
this evil genius of beginners, the following general
warnings may be useful :
1. Do not draw things that you love, on account
of their associations ; or at least do not draw them
because you love them ; but merely when you cannot
get anything else to draw. If you try to draw places
that you love, you are sure to be always entangled
amongst neat brick walls, iron railings, gravel walks,
88 The Elements of Drawing
greenhouses, and quickset hedges ; besides that you
will be continually led into some endeavour to make
your drawing pretty, or complete, which will be fatal
to your progress. You need never hope to get on, if
you are the least anxious that the drawing you are
actually at work upon should look nice when it is
done. All you have to care about is to make it
right, and to learn as much in doing it as possible.
So then, though when you are sitting in your friend's
parlour, or in your own, and have nothing else to do,
you may draw anything that is there, for practice ;
even the fire-irons or the pattern on the carpet : be
sure that it is for practice, and not because it is a
beloved carpet, nor a friendly poker and tongs, nor
because you wish to please your friend by drawing
her room.
Also, never make presents of your drawings. Of
course I am addressing you as a beginner — a time
may come when your work will be precious to every-
body ; but be resolute not to give it away till you
know that it is worth something (as soon as it is
worth anything you will know that it is so). If any
one asks you for a present of a drawing, send them a
couple of cakes of colour and a piece of Bristol
board : those materials are, for the present, of more
value in that form than if you had spread the one
over the other.
The main reason for this rule is, however, that its
observance will much protect you from the great
danger of trying to make your drawings pretty.
2. Never, by choice, draw anything polished ;
especially if complicated in form. Avoid all brass
rods and curtain ornaments, chandeliers, plate, glass,
and fine steel. A shining knob of a piece of furni-
ture does not matter if it comes in your way ; but do
not fret yourself if it will not look right, and choose
only things that do not shine.
3. Avoid all very neat things. They are exceed-
ingly difficult to draw, and very ugly when drawn.
Sketching from Nature 89
Choose rough, worn, and clumsy-looking things as
much as possible ; for instance, you cannot have a
more difficult or profitless study than a newly painted
Thames wherry, nor a better study than an old
empty coal-barge, lying ashore at low tide : in
general, everything that you think very ugly will
be good for you to draw.
4. Avoid, as much as possible, studies in which
one thing is seen through another. You will con-
stantly find a thin tree standing before your chosen
cottage, or between you and the turn of the river ;
its near branches all entangled with the distance. It
is intensely difficult to represent this ; and though,
when the tree is there, you must not imaginarily cut
it down, but do it as well as you can, yet always
look for subjects that fall into definite masses, not
into network ; that is, rather for a cottage with a
dark tree beside it, than for one with a thin tree in
front of it ; rather for a mass of wood, soft, blue,
and rounded, than for a ragged copse, or confusion
of intricate stems.
5. Avoid, as far as possible, country divided by
hedges. Perhaps nothing in the whole compass of
landscape is so utterly unpicturesque and unmanage-
able as the ordinary English patchwork of field and
hedge, with trees dotted over it in independent spots,
gnawed straight at the cattle line.
Still, do not be discouraged if you find you have
chosen ill, and that the subject overmasters you. It
is much better that it should, than that you should
think you had entirely mastered it. But at first, and
even for some time, you must be prepared for very
discomfortable failure ; which, nevertheless, will not
be without some wholesome result.
As, however, I have told you what most definitely
to avoid, I may, perhaps, help you a little by saying
what to seek. In general, all Banks are beautiful
things, and will reward work better than large land-
scapes. If you live in a lowland country, you must
90 The Elements of Drawing
look for places where the ground is broken to the
river's edges, with decayed posts, or roots of trees ;
or, if by great good luck there should be such things
within your reach, for remnants of stone quays or
steps, mossy mill-dams, &c. Nearly every other
mile of road in chalk country will present beautiful
bits of broken bank at its sides ; better in form and
colour than high chalk cliffs. In woods, one or two
trunks, with the flowery ground below, are at once
the richest and easiest kind of study : a not very
thick trunk, say nine inches or a foot in diameter,
with ivy running up it sparingly, is an easy, and
always a rewarding subject.
Large nests of buildings in the middle distance are
always beautiful, when drawn carefully, provided
they are not modern rows of pattern cottages, or
villas with Ionic and Doric porticos. Any old English
village, or cluster of farm-houses, drawn with all its
ins and outs, and haystacks, and palings, is sure to
be lovely ; much more a French one. French land-
scape is generally as much superior to English as
Swiss landscape is to French ; in some respects, the
French is incomparable. Such scenes as that avenue
on the Seine, which I have recommended you to buy
the engraving of, admit no rivalship in their ex-
pression of graceful rusticity and cheerful peace, and
in the beauty of component lines.
In drawing villages, take great pains with the
gardens ; a rustic garden is in every way beautiful.
If you have time, draw all the rows of cabbages,
and hollyhocks, and broken fences, and wandering
eglantines, and bossy roses : you cannot have better
practice, nor be kept by anything in purer thoughts.
Make intimate friends of all the brooks in your
neighbourhood, and study them ripple by ripple.
Village churches in England are not often good
subjects ; there is a peculiar meanness about most
of them, and awkwardness of line. Old manor-
houses are often pretty. Ruins are usually, with us,
Sketching from Nature 91
too prim, and cathedrals too orderly. I do not think
there is a single cathedral in England from which
it is possible to obtain one subject for an impressive
drawing. There is always some discordant civility,
or jarring vergerism about them.
If you live in a mountain or hill country, your
only danger is redundance of subject. Be resolved,
in the first place, to draw a piece of rounded rock,
with its variegated lichens, quite rightly, getting its
complete roundings, and all the patterns of the
lichen in true local colour. Till you can do this, it
is of no use your thinking of sketching among hills ;
but when once you have done this, the forms of
distant hills will be comparatively easy.
When you have practised for a little time from
such of these subjects as may be accessible to you,
you will certainly find difficulties arising which will
make you wish more than ever for a master's help :
these difficulties will vary according to the character
of your own mind (one question occurring to one
person, and one to another), so that it is impossible
to anticipate them all ; and it would make this too
large a book if I answered all that I can anticipate ;
you must be content to work on, in good hope that
Nature will, in her own time, interpret to you much
for herself ; that farther experience on your own part
will make some difficulties disappear ; and that others
will be removed by the occasional observation of such
artists' work as may come in your way. Neverthe-
less, I will not close this letter without a few general
remarks, such as may be useful to you after you are
somewhat advanced in power; and these remarks
may, I think, be conveniently arranged under three
heads, having reference to the drawing of vegetation,
water, and skies.
And, first, of vegetation. You may think, perhaps,
we have said enough about trees already ; yet if you
have done as you were bid, and tried to draw them
frequently enough, and carefully enough, you will be
92 The Elements of Drawing
ready by this time to hear a little more of them.
You will also recollect that we left our question,
respecting the mode of expressing intricacy of leaf-
age, partly unsettled in the first letter. I left it so
because I wanted you to learn the real structure of
leaves, by drawing them for yourself, before I
troubled you with the most subtle considerations as
to method in drawing them. And by this time, I
magine, you must have found out two principal
things, universal facts, about leaves ; namely, that
they always, in the main tendencies of their lines,
indicate a beautiful divergence of growth, according
to the law of radiation, already referred to l ; and
the second, that this divergence is never formal, but
carried out with endless variety of individual line. I
must now press both these facts on your attention a
little farther.
You may perhaps have been surprised that I have
not yet spoken of the works of J. D. Harding,
especially if you happen to have met with the
passages referring to them in Modern Painters,
in which they are highly praised. They are de-
servedly praised, for they are the only works by a
modern draughtsman which express in any wise the
energy of trees, and the laws of growth, of which
we have been speaking. There are no lithographic
sketches which, for truth of general character, ob-
tained with little cost of time, at all rival Harding's.
Calame, Robert, and the other lithographic landscape
sketchers are altogether inferior in power, though
sometimes a little deeper in meaning. But you must
not take even Harding for a model, though you may
use his works for occasional reference ; and if you
can afford to buy his Lessons on Trees 2, it will be ser-
1 See the closing' letter of "The Elements of Drawing."
2 Bogue, Fleet Street. If you are not acquainted with
Harding's works, (an unlikely supposition, considering their
popularity,) and cannot meet with the one in question, the
diagrams given here will enable you to understand all that is
needful for our purposes.
Sketching from Nature 93
viceahle to you in various ways, and will at present
help me to explain the point under consideration.
And it is well that I should illustrate this point by
reference to Harding's works, because their great
influence on young students renders it desirable that
their real character should be thoroughly understood.
You will find, first, in the titlepage of the Lessons
on Trees, a pretty woodcut, in which the tree stems
are drawn with great truth, and in a very interesting
arrangement of lines. Plate i. is not quite worthy of
Mr. Harding, tending too much to make his pupil, at
starting, think everything depends on black dots ;
still, the main lines are good, and very characteristic
of tree growth. Then, in Plate 2., we come to the
point at issue. The first examples in that plate are
given to the pupil that he may
practise from them till his hand
gets into the habit of arranging
lines freely in a similar manner ; *^/y^'^ - / (/
and they are stated by Mr. ^r^^ {/ v
Harding to be universal in pIG 2,
application; "all outlines ex-
pressive of foliage," he says, " are but modifica-
tions of them." They consist of groups of lines,
more or less resembling our Fig. 23. on this
page ; and the characters especially insisted upon
are, that they " tend at their inner ends to a common
centre ; " that " their ends terminate in [are enclosed
by] ovoid curves;" and that "the outer ends are
most emphatic."
Now, as thus expressive of the great laws of
radiation and enclosure, the main principle of this
method of execution confirms, in a very interesting
way, our conclusions respecting foliage composition.
The reason of the last rule, that the outer end of the
line is to be most emphatic, does not indeed at first
appear ; for the line at one end of a natural leaf is
not more emphatic than the line at the other : but
ultimately, in Harding's method, this darker part of
94 The Elements of Drawing
the touch stands more or less for the shade at the
outer extremity of the leaf mass ; and, as Harding
uses these touches, they express as much of tree
character as any mere habit of touch can express.
But, unfortunately, there is another law of tree
growth, quite as fixed as the law of radiation, which
this and all other conventional modes of execution
wholly lose sight of. This second law is, that the
radiating tendency shall be carried out only as a
ruling spirit in reconcilement with perpetual indi-
vidual caprice
on the part of
the separate
leaves. Sothat
the moment a
touch is mono-
tonous, it must
be also false,
the liberty of
the leaf indi-
vidually being
just as essential
a truth, as its
unity of growth
with its com-
panions in the
radiatinggroup.
It does not matter how small or apparently sym-
metrical the cluster may be, nor how large or vague.
You can hardly have a more formal one than b in
Fig. 9. p. 50., nor a less formal one than this shoot
of Spanish chestnut, shedding its leaves, Fig. 24. ;
but in either of them, even the general reader, un-
practised in any of the previously recommended
exercises, must see that there are wandering lines
mixed with the radiating ones, and radiating lines
with the wild ones : and if he takes the pen, and tries
to copy either of these examples, he will find that
neither play of hand to left nor to right, neither a free
Fig. 24.
Sketching from Nature 95
touch nor a firm touch, nor any learnable or describ-
able touch whatsoever, will enable him to produce,
currently, a resemblance of it ; but that he must
either draw it slowly, or give it up. And (which
makes the matter worse still) though gathering the
bough, and putting it close to you, or seeing a piece
of near foliage against the sky, you may draw the
entire outline of the leaves, yet if the spray has light
upon it, and is ever so little a way off, you will miss,
as we have seen, a point of a leaf here, and an edge
there ; some of the surfaces will be confused by
glitter, and some spotted with shade ; and if you look
carefully through this confusion for the edges or
Fig. 25.
dark stems which you really can see, and put only
those down, the result will be neither like Fig. 9. nor
Fig. 24., but such an interrupted and puzzling piece
of work as Fig. 25.1
Now, it is in the perfect acknowledgment and
expression of these three laws that all good drawing
of landscape consists. There is, first, the organic
unity ; the law, whether of radiation, or parallelism,
or concurrent action, which rules the masses of
herbs and trees, of rocks, and clouds, and waves ;
secondly, the individual liberty of the members
subjected to these laws of unity ; and, lastly, the
1 I draw this figure (a young shoot of oak) in outline only,
it being impossible to express the refinements of shade in
distant foliage in a woodcut.
96 The Elements of Drawing
mystery under which the separate character of each
is more or less concealed.
I say, first, there must be observance of the ruling
organic law. This is the first distinction between
good artists and bad artists. Your common sketcher
or bad painter puts his leaves on the trees as if they
were moss tied to sticks ; he cannot see the lines of
action or growth ; he scatters the shapeless clouds
over his sky, not perceiving the sweeps of associated
curves which the real clouds are following as they
fly ; and he breaks his mountain side into rugged
fragments, wholly unconscious of the lines of force
with which the real rocks have risen, or of the lines
of couch in which they repose. On the contrary, it
is the main delight of the great draughtsman to trace
these laws of government ; and his tendency to error
is always in the exaggeration of their authority rather
than in its denial.
Secondly, I say, we have to show the individual
character and liberty of the separate leaves, clouds,
or rocks. And herein the great masters separate
themselves finally from the inferior ones ; for if the
men of inferior genius ever express law at all, it is
by the sacrifice of individuality. Thus, Salvator
Rosa has great perception of the sweep of foliage
and rolling of clouds, but never draws a single leaflet
or mist wreath accurately. Similarly, Gainsborough,
in his landscape, has great feeling for masses of form
and harmony of colour ; but in the detail gives
nothing but meaningless touches ; not even so much
as the species of tree, much less the variety of
its leafage, being ever discernible. Now, although
both these expressions of government and individu-
ality are essential to masterly work, the individuality
is the more essential, and the more difficult of attain-
ment ; and, therefore, that attainment separates the
great masters finally from the inferior ones. It is the
more essential, because, in these matters of beautiful
arrangement in visible things, the same rules hold
Sketching from Nature 97
that hold in moral things. It is a lamentable and
unnatural thing to see a number of men subject to
no government, actuated by no ruling principle, and
associated by no common affection : but it would be
a more lamentable thing still, were it possible, to see
a number of men so oppressed into assimilation as
to have no more any individual hope or character,
no differences in aim, no dissimilarities of passion,
no irregularities of judgment ; a society in which no
man could help another, since none would be feebler
than himself ; no man admire another, since none
would be stronger than himself ; no man be grateful
to another, since by none he could be relieved ; no
man reverence another, since by none he could be
instructed ; a society in which every soul would be
as the syllable of a stammerer instead of the word of
a speaker, in which every man would walk as in a
frightful dream, seeing spectres of himself, in ever-
lasting multiplication, gliding helplessly around him
in a speechless darkness. Therefore it is that per-
petual difference, play, and change in groups of
form are more essential to them even than their
being subdued by some great gathering law : the
law is needful to them for their perfection and their
power, but the difference is needful to them for their
life.
And here it may be noted in passing, that, if you
enjoy the pursuit of analogies and types, and have
any ingenuity of judgment in discerning them, you
may always accurately ascertain what are the noble
characters in a piece of painting by merely considering
what are the noble characters of man in his associa-
tion with his fellows. What grace of manner and
refinement of habit are in society, grace of line and
refinement of form are in the association of visible
objects. What advantage or harm there may be in
sharpness, ruggedness, or quaintness in the dealings
or conversations of men ; precisely that relative
decree of advantage or harm there is in them as
98 The Elements of Drawing
elements of pictorial composition. What power is in
liberty or relaxation to strengthen or relieve human
souls ; that power, precisely in the same relative
degree, play and laxity of line have to strengthen or
refresh the expression of a picture. And what good-
ness or greatness we can conceive to arise in com-
panies of men, from chastity of thought, regularity
of life, simplicity of custom, and balance of authority ;
precisely that kind of goodness and greatness may
be given to a picture by the purity of its colour,
the severity of its forms, and the symmetry of its
masses.
You need not be in the least afraid of pushing
these analogies too far. They cannot be pushed too
far ; they are so precise and complete, that the farther
you pursue them, the clearer, the more certain, the
more useful you will find them. They will not fail
you in one particular, or in any direction of enquiry.
There is no moral vice, no moral virtue, which has
not its precise prototype in the art of painting ; so
that you may at your will illustrate the moral habit
by the art, or the art by the moral habit. Affection
and discord, fretfulness and quietness, feebleness and
firmness, luxury and purity, pride and modesty,
and all other such habits, and every conceivable
modification and mingling of them, may be illus-
trated, with mathematical exactness, by conditions
of line and colour ; and not merely these definable
vices and virtues, but also every conceivable shade
of human character and passion, from the righteous
or unrighteous majesty of the king to the innocent
or faultful simplicity of the shepherd boy.
The pursuit of this subject belongs properly, how-
ever, to the investigation of the higher branches of
composition, matters which it would be quite use-
less to treat of in this book ; and I only allude to
them here, in order that you may understand how
the utmost noblenesses of art are concerned in this
minute work, to which I have set you in your
Sketching from Nature 99
beginning- of it. For it is only by the closest attention,
and the most noble execution, that it is possible
to express these varieties of individual character,
on which all excellence of portraiture depends,
whether of masses of mankind, or of groups of
leaves.
Now you will be able to understand, among other
matters, wherein consists the excellence, and wherein
the shortcoming, of the tree-drawing of Harding.
It is excellent in so far as it fondly observes, with
more truth than any other work of the kind, the
great laws of growth and action in trees : it fails, —
and observe, not in a minor, but in the principal
point, — because it cannot rightly render any one
individual detail or incident of foliage. And in this
it fails, not from mere carelessness or incompletion,
but of necessity ; the true drawing of detail being
for evermore impossible to a hand which has con-
tracted a habit of execution. The noble draughtsman
draws a leaf, and stops, and says calmly, — That leaf
is of such and such a character ; I will give him a
friend who will entirely suit him : then he considers
what his friend ought to be, and having determined,
he draws his friend. This process may be as quick
as lightning when the master is great — one of the
sons of the giants ; or it may be slow and timid :
but the process is always gone through ; no touch
or form is ever added to another by a good painter
without a mental determination and affirmation. But
when the hand has got into a habit, leaf No. i.
necessitates leaf No. 2. ; you cannot stop, your hand
is as a horse with the bit in its teeth ; or rather is,
for the time, a machine, throwing out leaves to order
and pattern, all alike. You must stop that hand of
yours, however painfully ; make it understand that
it is not to have its own way any more, that it shall
never more slip from one touch to another without
orders ; otherwise it is not you who are the master,
but your fingers. You may therefore study Harding's
ioo The Elements of Drawing
drawing, and take pleasure in it1; and you may
properly admire the dexterity which applies the habit
of the hand so well, and produces results on the
whole so satisfactory : but you must never copy it ;
otherwise your progress will be at once arrested.
The utmost you can ever hope to do would be a
sketch in Harding's manner, but of far inferior
dexterity ; for he has given his life's toil to gain his
dexterity, and you, I suppose, have other things to
work at besides drawing. You would also incapaci-
tate yourself from ever understanding what truly
great work was, or what Nature was ; but by the
earnest and complete study of facts, you will gradually
come to understand the one and love the other more
and more, whether you can draw well yourself or not.
I have yet to say a few words respecting the third
law above stated, that of mystery ; the law, namely,
that nothing is ever seen perfectly, but only by frag-
ments, and under various conditions of obscurity.2
This last fact renders the visible objects of Nature
complete as a type of the human nature. We have,
observe, first, Subordination ; secondly, Individuality;
lastly, and this not the least essential character,
Incomprehensibility ; a perpetual lesson in every ser-
rated point and shining vein which escape or deceive
our sight among the forest leaves, how little we may
hope to discern clearly, or judge justly, the rents
and veins of the human heart ; how much of all that
is round us, in men's actions or spirits, which we at
first think we understand, a closer and more loving
watchfulness would show to be full of mystery, never
to be either fathomed or withdrawn.
1 His lithographic sketches, those for instance in the Park
and the Forest, and his various lessons on foliage, possess
greater merit than the more ambitious engravings in his Prin-
ciples and Practice of Art. There are many useful remarks,
however, dispersed through this latter work.
2 On this law you will do well, if you can get access to it,
to look at the fourth chapter of the fourth volume of Modern
Painters.
Sketching from Nature 101
The expression of this final character in landscape
has never been completely reached by any except
Turner ; nor can you hope to reach it at all until you
have given much time to the practice of art. Only
try always when you are sketching' any object with a
view to completion in light and shade, to draw only
those parts of it which you really see definitely ;
preparing for the
after development ^\ ,*>vi^
of the forms by
chiaroscuro. It is
this preparation by
isolated touches
for a future ar-
rangement of
superimposed
light and shade
which renders the
etchings of the
Liber Studiorum
so inestimable as
examples, and so
peculiar. The char-
acter exists more
or less in them
exactly in propor-
tion to the pains
that Turner has taken. Thus the .^Esacus and
Hesperie was wrought out with the greatest pos-
sible care ; and the principal branch on the near
tree is etched as in Fig. 26. The work looks at
first like a scholar's instead of a master's ; but
when the light and shade is added, every touch
falls into its place, and a perfect expression of
grace and complexity results. Nay, even before
the light and shade are added, you ought to be
able to see that these irregular and broken lines,
especially where the expression is given of the way
the stem loses itself in the leaves, are more true
102 The Elements of Drawing
than the monotonous though graceful leaf-drawing
which, before Turner's time, had been employed,
even by the best masters, in their distant masses.
Fig. 27. is sufficiently characteristic of the manner
of the old woodcuts after Titian ; in which, you see,
the leaves are too much of one shape, like bunches
of fruit ; and the boughs too completely seen, besides
being somewhat soft and leathery in aspect, owing
to the want of angles in their outline. By great men
like Titian, this somewhat conventional structure was
only given in haste to
^s*^^S^^^2S^^'-> distant masses ; and
their exquisite delinea-
tion of the foreground,
kept their convention-
alism from degeneracy:
but in the drawings of
the Caracci and other
derivative masters, the
conventionalism pre-
vails everywhere, and
sinks gradually into scrawled work, like Fig. 28.,
about the worst which it is possible to get into the
habit of using, though an ignorant person might per-
haps suppose it more "free "and therefore better than
Fig. 26. Note also, that in noble outline drawing,
it does not follow that a bough is wrongly drawn,
because it looks contracted unnaturally somewhere,
as in Fig. 26., just above the foliage. Very often the
muscular action which is to be expressed by the line
runs into the middle of the branch, and the actual
outline of the branch at that place may be dimly
seen, or not at all ; and it is then only by the future
shade that its actual shape, or the cause of its
disappearance, will be indicated.
One point more remains to be noted about trees,
and 1 havre done. In the minds of our ordinary
water-colour artists a distant tree seems only to be
conceived as a flat green blot, grouping pleasantly
Fig. 27.
Sketching from Nature 103
with other masses, and giving cool colour to the
landscape, but differing no wise, in texture, from
the blots of other
shapes which these
painters use to ex-
press stones, or
water, or figures.
But as soon as you
have drawn trees
carefully a little
while, you will be
impressed, and im-
pressed more
strongly the better
you draw them, with
the idea of their
softness of surface.
A distant tree is not
a fiat and even piece
of colour, but a
more or less globu-
lar mass of a downy
or bloomy texture,
partly passing into
a misty vagueness. I find, practically, this lovely
softness of far-away trees the most difficult of
all characters to reach, because it cannot be got by
mere scratching or roughening the surface, but is
always associated with such delicate expressions of
form and growth as are only imitable by very careful
drawing. The penknife passed lightly over this care-
ful drawing will do a good deal ; but you must
accustom yourself, from the beginning, to aim much
at this softness in the lines of the drawing itself, by
crossing them delicately, and more or less effacing
and confusing the edges. You must invent, accord-
ing to the character of tree, various modes of
execution adapted to express its texture ; but always
keep this character of softness in your mind, and
Fig. 28.
104 The Elements of Drawing
in your scope of aim ; for in most landscapes it is
the intention of Nature that the tenderness and
transparent infinitude of her foliage should be felt,
even at the far distance, in the most distinct opposi-
tion to the solid masses and flat surfaces of rocks or
building's.
II. We were, in the second place, to consider a
little the modes of representing water, of which
important feature of landscape I have hardly said
anything yet.
Water is expressed, in common drawings, by con-
ventional lines, whose horizontality is supposed to
convey the idea of its surface. In paintings, white
dashes or bars of light are used for the same
purpose.
But these and all other such expedients are vain
and absurd. A piece of calm water always contains
a picture in itself, an exquisite reflection of the
objects above it. If you give the time necessary
to draw these reflections, disturbing them here and
there as you see the breeze or current disturb them,
you will get the effect of the water ; but if you have
not patience to draw the reflections, no expedient
will give you a true effect. The picture in the pool
needs nearly as much delicate drawing as the picture
above the pool ; except only that if there be the
least motion on the water, the horizontal lines of the
images will be diffused and broken, while the vertical
ones will remain decisive, and the oblique ones
decisive in proportion to their steepness.
A few close studies will soon teach you this : the
only thing you need to be told is to watch carefully
the lines of disturbance on the surface, as when a bird
swims across it, or a fish rises, or the current plays
round a stone, reed, or other obstacle. Take the
greatest pains to get the curves of these lines true ;
the whole value of your careful drawing of the
reflections may be lost by your admitting a single
Sketching from Nature 105
false curve of ripple from a wild duck's breast. And
(as in other subject*) if you are dissatisfied with
your result, always try for more unity and delicacy :
if your reflections are only soft and gradated enough,
they are nearly sure to give you a pleasant effect.
When you are taking pains, work the softer reflec-
tions, where they are drawn out by motion in the
water, with touches as nearly horizontal as may be ;
but when you are in a hurry, indicate the place and
play of the images with vertical lines. The actual
construction of a calm elongated reflection is with
horizontal lines : but it is often impossible to draw
the descending shades delicately enough with a
horizontal touch ; and it is best always when you
are in a hurry, and sometimes when you are not, to
use the vertical touch. When the ripples are large,
the reflections become shaken, and must be drawn
with bold undulatory descending lines.
I need not, I should think, tell you that it is of
the greatest possible importance to draw the curves
of the shore rightly. Their perspective is, if not
more subtle, at least more stringent than that of
any other lines of Nature. It will not be detected
by the general observer, if you miss the curve of a
branch, or the sweep of a cloud, or the perspective
of a building J ; but every intelligent spectator will
feel the difference between a rightly drawn bend of
shore or shingle, and a false one. Absolutely right,
in difficult river perspectives seen from heights, I
believe no one but Turner ever has been yet ; and
observe, there is no rule for them. To develope the
curve mathematically would require a knowledge
of the exact quantity of water in the river, the
shape of its bed, and the hardness of the rock or
shore ; and even with these data, the problem would
be one which no mathematician could solve but
1 The student may hardly at first believe that the perspective
of buildings is of little consequence ; but he will find it so
ultimately. See the remarks on this point in the Preface.
106 The Elements of Drawing
approximately. The instinct of the eye can do it ;
nothing else.
If, after a little study from Nature, you get puzzled
by the great differences between the aspect of the
reflected image and that of the object casting it; and
if you wish to know the law of reflection, it is simply
this : Suppose all the objects above the water actually
reversed (not in appearance, but in fact) beneath the
water, and precisely the same in form and in relative
position, only all topsy-turvy. Then, whatever you
can see, from the place in which you stand, of the
solid objects so reversed under the water, you will
see in the reflection, always in the true perspective of
the solid objects so reversed.
If you cannot quite understand this in looking at
water, take a mirror, lay it horizontally on the table,
put some books and papers upon it, and draw them
and their reflections; moving them about, and watch-
ing how their reflections alter, and chiefly how their
reflected colours and shades differ from their own
colours and shades, by being brought into other
oppositions. This difference in chiaroscuro is a more
important character in water painting than mere
difference in form.
When you are drawing shallow or muddy water,
you will see shadows on the bottom, or on the sur-
face, continually modifying the reflections ; and in a
clear mountain stream, the most wonderful compli-
cations of effect resulting from the shadows and
reflections of the stones in it, mingling with the aspect
of the stones themselves seen through the water.
Do not be frightened at the complexity ; but, on the
other hand, do not hope to render it hastily. Look
at it well, making out everything that you see, and
distinguishing each component part of the effect.
There will be, first, the stones seen through the
water, distorted always by refraction, so that if the
general structure of the stone shows straight parallel
lines above the water, you may be sure they will be
Sketching from Nature 107
bent where they enter it ; then the reflection of the
part of the stone above the water crosses and inter-
feres with the part that is seen through it, so that
you can hardly tell which is which ; and wherever
the reflection is darkest, you will see through the water
best, and vice versa. Then the real shadow of the stone
crosses both these images, and where that shadow
falls, it makes the water more reflective, and where
the sunshine falls, you will see more of the surface
of the water, and of any dust or motes that may
be floating on it : but whether you are to see,
at the same spot, most of the bottom of the
water, or of the reflection of the objects above,
depends on the position of the eye. The more you
look down into the water, the better you see
objects through it ; the more you look along it, the
eye being low, the more you see the reflection of
objects above it. Hence the colour of a given space
of surface in a stream will entirely change while \ ou
stand still in the same spot, merely as you stoop or
raise your head ; and thus the colours with which
water is painted are an indication of the position
of the spectator, and connected inseparably with
the perspective of the shores. The most beautiful
of all results that I know in mountain streams is
when the water is shallow, and the stones at the
bottom are rich reddish-orange and black, and the
water is seen at an angle which exactly divides
the visible colours between those of the stones and
that of the sky, and the sky is of clear, full blue. The
resulting purple, obtained by the blending of the
blue and the orange-red, broken by the play of
innumerable gradations in the stones, is indescribably
lovely.
All this seems complicated enough already ; but if
there be a strong colour in the clear water itself,
as of green or blue in the Swiss lakes, all these
phenomena are doubly involved ; for the darker reflec-
tions now become of the colour of the water. The
108 The Elements of Drawing
reflection of a black gondola, for instance, at Venice,
is never black, but pure dark green. And, farther, the
colour of the water itself is of three kinds : one, seen
on the surface, is a kind of milky bloom ; the next is
seen where the waves let light through them, at their
edges ; and the third, shown as a change of colour on
the objects seen through the water. Thus, the same
wave that makes a white object look of a clear blue,
when seen through it, will take a red or violet-
coloured bloom on its surface, and will be made pure
emerald green by transmitted sunshine through its
edges. With all this, however, you are not much
concerned at present, but I tell it you partly as a
preparation for what we have afterwards to say about
colour, and partly that you may approach lakes and
streams with reverence, and study them as carefully
as other things, not hoping to express them by a few
horizontal dashes of white, or a few tremulous blots.1
Not but that much may be done by tremulous blots,
when you know precisely what you mean by them,
as you will see by many of the Turner sketches,
which are now framed at the National Gallery ; but
you must have painted water many and many a day
— yes, and all day long — before you can hope to do
anything like those.
III. Lastly. You may perhaps wonder why, before
passing to the clouds, I say nothing special about
ground^1 But there is too much to be said about that
1 It is a useful piece of study to dissolve some Prussian blue
in water, so as to make the liquid definitely blue : fill a large
white basin with the solution, and put anything you like to
float on it, or lie in it ; walnut shells, bits of wood, leaves of
flowers, &c. Then study the effects of the reflections, and of
the stems of the flowers or submerged portions of the floating
objects, as they appear through the blue liquid ; noting especi-
ally how, as you lower your head and look along the surface,
you see the reflections clearly ; and how, as you raise your head,
you lose the reflections, and see the submerged stems clearly.
2 Respecting Architectur.-il Drawing, see the notice of the
works of Prout in the Appendix.
Sketching from Nature 109
to admit of my saying- it here. You will find the
principal laws of its structure examined at length in
the fourth volume of Modern Painters ; and if you
can get that volume, and copy carefully Plate 21. ,
which I have etched after Turner with great pains,
it will give you as much help as you need in the linear
expression of ground-surface. Strive to get the
retirement and succession of masses in irregular
ground : much may be done in this way by careful
watching of the perspective diminutions of its her-
bage, as well as by contour ; and much also by
shadows. If you draw the shadows of leaves and
tree trunks on any undulating ground with entire
carefulness, you will be surprised to find how much
they explain of the form and distance of the earth on
which they fall.
Passing then to skies, note that there is this great
peculiarity about sky subject, as distinguished from
earth subject ; — that the clouds, not being much liable
to man's interference, are always beautifully arranged.
You cannot be sure of this in any other features of
landscape. The rock on which the effect of a moun-
tain scene especially depends is always precisely that
which the roadmaker blasts or the landlord quarries ;
and the spot of green which Nature left with a special
purpose by her dark forest sides, and finished with
her most delicate grasses, is always that which the
farmer ploughs or builds upon. But the clouds,
though we can hide them with smoke, and mix them
with poison, cannot be quarried nor built over, and
they are always therefore gloriously arranged ; so
gloriously, that unless you have notable powers of
memory you need not hope to approach the effect of
any sky that interests you. For both its grace and its
glow depend upon the united influence of every cloud
within its compass : they all move and burn together
in a marvellous harmony; not a cloud of them is out
of its appointed place, or fails of its part in the choir :
and if you are not able to recollect (which in the case
no The Elements of Drawing
of a complicated sky it is impossible you should)
precisely the form and position of all the clouds at a
given moment, you cannot draw the sky at all ; for
the clouds will not fit if you draw one part of them
three or four minutes before another. You must try
therefore to help what memory you have, by sketch-
ing- at the utmost possible speed the whole range of
the clouds ; marking, by any shorthand or symbolic
work you can hit upon, the peculiar character of each,
as transparent, or fleecy, or linear, or undulatory ;
giving afterwards such completion to the parts as
your recollection will enable you to do. This, how-
ever, only when the sky is interesting from its general
aspect ; at other times, do not try to draw all the
sky, but a single cloud: sometimes a round cumulus
will stay five or six minutes quite steady enough to
let you mark out his principal masses ; and one or
two white or crimson lines which cross the sunrise
will often stay without serious change for as long.
And in order to be the readier in drawing them,
practise occasionally drawing lumps of cotton, which
will teach you better than any other stable thing the
kind of softness there is in clouds. For you will find
when you have made a few genuine studies of sky,
and then look at any ancient or modern painting,
that ordinary artists have always fallen into one of
two faults : either, in rounding the clouds, they
make them as solid and hard-edged as a heap of
stones tied up in a sack, or they represent them not
as rounded at all, but as vague wreaths of mist or
flat lights in the sky ; and think they have done
enough in leaving a little white paper between dashes
of blue, or in taking an irregular space out with the
sponge. Now clouds are not as solid as flour-sacks ;
but, on the other hand, they are neither spongy nor
flat. They are definite and very beautiful forms of
sculptured mist ; sculptured is a perfectly accurate
word ; they are not more d7-ifted into form than they
are carved into form, the warm air around them
Sketching from Nature in
cutting them into shape by absorbing- the visible
vapour beyond certain limits ; hence their angular
and fantastic outlines, as different from a swollen,
spherical, or globular formation, on the one hand,
as from that of flat films or shapeless mists on the
other. And the worst of all is, that while these
forms are difficult enough to draw on any terms,
especially considering that they never stay quiet,
they must be drawn also at greater disadvantage of
light and shade than any others, the force of light in
clouds being wholly unattainable by art ; so that if
we put shade enough to express their form as posi-
tively as it is expressed in reality, we must make
them painfully too dark on the dark sides. Never-
theless, they are so beautiful, if you in the least
succeed with them, that you will hardly, I think,
lose courage. Outline them often with the pen, as
you can catch them here and there ; one of the chief
uses of doing this will be, not so much the memo-
randum so obtained as the lesson you will get
respecting the softness of the cloud-outlines. You
will always find yourself at a loss to see where the
outline really is ; and when drawn it will always look
hard and false, and will assuredly be either too round
or too square, however often you alter it, merely
passing from the one fault to the other and back
again, the real cloud striking an inexpressible mean
between roundness and squareness in all its coils or
battlements. I speak at present, of course, only of
the cumulus cloud : the lighter wreaths and flakes
of the upper sky cannot be outlined ; — they can only
be sketched, like locks of hair, by many lines of the
pen. Firmly developed bars of cloud on the horizon
are in general easy enough, and may be drawn with
decision. When you have thus accustomed yourself
a little to the placing and action of clouds, try to
work out their light and shade, just as carefully as
you do that of other things, looking exclusively for
examples of treatment to the vignettes in Rogers's
1 12 The Elements of Drawing
Italy and Poems, and to the Liber Studiorum, unless
you have access to some examples of Turner's own
work. No other artist ever yet drew the sky : even
Titian's clouds, and Tintoret's, are conventional.
The clouds in the "Ben Arthur," "Source of Arveron,"
and "Calais Pier," are among- the best of Turner's
storm studies ; and of the upper clouds, the vignettes
to Rogers's Poems furnish as many examples as you
need.
And now, as our first lesson was taken from the
sky, so, for the present, let our last be. I do not
advise you to be in any haste to master the contents
of my next letter. If you have any real talent for
drawing, you will take delight in the discoveries of
natural loveliness, which the studies I have already
proposed will lead you into, among the fields and
hills ; and be assured that the more quietly and
single-heartedly you take each step in the art, the
quicker, on the whole, will your progress be. I would
rather, indeed, have discussed the subjects of the
following letter at greater length, and in a separate
work addressed to more advanced students ; but as
there are one or two things to be said on composition
which may set the young artist's mind somewhat
more at rest, or furnish him with defence from the
urgency of ill-advisers, I will glance over the main
heads of the matter here ; trusting that my doing so
may not beguile you, my dear reader, from your
serious work, or lead you to think me, in occupying
part of this book with talk not altogether relevant to
it, less entirely or
Faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.
LETTER III
ON COLOUR AND COMPOSITION
My dear Reader, — If you have been obedient,
and have hitherto done all that I have told you, I
trust it has not been without much subdued remon-
strance, and some serious vexation. For I should be
sorry if, when vou were led by the course of your
study to observe closely such things as are beautiful
in colour, you had not longed to paint them, and felt
considerable difficulty in complying with your restric-
tion to the use of black, or blue, or grey. You ought
to love colour, and to think nothing quite beautiful
or perfect without it ; and if you really do love it, for
its own sake, and are not merely desirous to colour
because you think painting a finer thing than draw-
ing, there is some chance you may colour well.
Nevertheless, you need not hope ever to produce
anything more than pleasant helps to memory, or
useful and suggestive sketches in colour, unless you
mean to be wholly an artist. You may, in the time
which other vocations leave at your disposal, produce
finished, beautiful, and masterly drawings in light and
shade. But to colour well, requires your life. It
cannot be done cheaper. The difficulty of doing right
is increased — not twofold nor threefold, but a thou-
sand fold, and more — by the addition of colour to
your work. For the chances are more than a thou-
sand to one against your being right both in form
and colour with a given touch : it is difficult enough
to be right in form, if you attend to that only ; but
when you have to attend, at the same moment, to a
much more subtle thing than the form, the difficulty
is strangely increased, — and multiplied almost to
infinity by this great fact, that, while form is abso-
lute, so that you can say at the moment you draw
113 1
U4 The Elements of Drawing
any line that it is either right or wrong, colour is
wholly relative. Every hue throughout your work is
altered by every touch that you add in other places ;
so that what was warm a minute ago, becomes cold
when you have put a hotter colour in another place,
and what was in harmony when you left it, becomes
discordant as you set other colours beside it ; so that
every touch must be laid, not with a view to its effect
at the time, but with a view to its effect in futurity,
the result upon it of all that is afterwards to be done
being previously considered. You may easily under-
stand that, this being so, nothing but the devotion ot
life, and great genius besides, can make a colourist.
But though you cannot produce finished coloured
drawings of any value, you may give yourself much
pleasure, and be of great use to other people, by
occasionally sketching with a view to colour only ;
and preserving distinct statements of certain colour
facts — as that the harvest-moon at rising was of such
and such a red, and surrounded by clouds of such and
such a rosy grey ; that the mountains at evening
were in truth so deep in purple ; and the waves by
the boat's side were indeed of that incredible green.
This only, observe, if you have an eye for colour;
but you may presume that you have this, if you
enjoy colour.
And, though of course you should always give as
much form to your subject as your attention to its
colour will admit of, remember that the whole value
of what you are about depends, in a coloured sketch,
on the colour merely. If the colour is wrong, every-
thing is wrong : just as, if you are singing, and sing
false notes, it does not matter how true the words
are. If you sing at all, you must sing sweetly ; and
if you colour at all, you must colour rightly. Give
up all the form, rather than the slightest part of the
colour : just as, if you felt yourself in danger of a
false note, you would give up the word, and sing a
meaningless sound, if you felt that so you could save
On Colour and Composition 115
the note. Never mind though your houses are all
tumbling down, — though your clouds are mere blots,
and your trees mere knobs, and your sun and moon
like crooked sixpences, — so only that trees, clouds,
houses, and sun or moon, are of the right colours.
Of course, the discipline you have gone through will
enable you to hint something of form, even in the
fastest sweep of the brush ; but do not let the
thought of form hamper you in the least, when you
begin to make coloured memoranda. If you want
the form of the subject, draw it in black and white.
If you want its colour, take its colour, and be sure
you have it, and not a spurious, treacherous, half-
measured piece of mutual concession, with the colours
all wrong, and the forms still anything but right It
is best to get into the habit of considering the
coloured work merely as supplementary to your other
studies ; making your careful drawings of the subject
first, and then a coloured memorandum separately,
as shapeless as you like, but faithful in hue, and
entirely minding its own business. This principle,
however, bears chiefly on large and distant subjects ;
in foregrounds and near studies, the colour cannot
be had without a good deal of definition of form.
For if you do not map the mosses on the stones
accurately, you will not have the right quantity of
colour in each bit of moss pattern, and then none of
the colours will look right ; but it always simplifies
the work much if you are clear as to your point of aim,
and satisfied, when necessary, to fail of all but that.
Now, of course, if I were to enter into detail
respecting colouring, which is the beginning and end
of a painter's craft, I should need to make this a
work in three volumes instead of three letters, and
to illustrate it in the costliest way. I only hope, at
present, to set you pleasantly and profitably to work,
leaving you, within the tethering of certain leading-
strings, to gather what advantages you can from the
works of art of which every year brings a greater
u6 The Elements of Drawing
number within your reach ; — and from the instruction
which, every year, our rising' artists will be more
ready to give kindly, and better able to give wisely.
And, first, of materials. Use hard cake colours,
not moist colours : grind a sufficient quantity of each
on your palette every morning, keeping a separate
plate, large and deep, for colours to be used in broad
washes, and wash both plate and palette every
evening, so as to be able always to get good and
pure colour when you need it; and force yourself into
cleanly and orderly habits about your colours. The
two best colourists of modern times, Turner and
Rossetti1, afford us, I am sorry to say, no confirm-
ation of this precept by their practice. Turner was,
and Rossetti is, as slovenly in all their procedures as
men can well be ; but the result of this was, with
Turner, that the colours have altered in all his
pictures, and in many of his drawings ; and the result
of it with Rossetti is, that, though his colours are
safe, he has sometimes to throw aside work that was
half done, and begin over again. William Hunt, of
the Old Water-colour, is very neat in his practice ;
so, I believe, is Mulready ; so is John Lewis ; and
so are the leading Pre-Raphaelites, Rossetti only
excepted. And there can be no doubt about the
goodness of the advice, if it were only for this reason,
that the more particular you are about your colours
the more you will get into a deliberate and methodical
habit in using them, and all true speed in colouring
comes of this deliberation.
Use Chinese white, well ground, to mix with your
colours in order to pale them, instead of a quantity
1 I give Rossetti this preeminence, because, though the
eading Pre-Raphaelites have all about equal power over colour
in the abstract, Rossetti and Holman Hunt are distinguished
above the rest for rendering colour under effects of ight ; and
of these two, Rossetti composes with richer fancv, and with
a deeper sense of beauty, Hunt's stern realism leading him
continually into harshness. Rossetti's carelessness, to do him
justice, is only in water-colour, never in oil.
On Colour and Composition 117
of water. You will thus be able to shape your
masses mere quietly, and play the colours about
with more ease ; they will not damp your paper so
much, and you will be able to go on continually, and
lay forms of passing cloud and other fugitive or
delicately shaped lights, otherwise unattainable except
by time.
This mixing of white with the pigments, so as to
render them opaque, constitutes 6od\-co\our drawing
as opposed to transparent-colour drawing and you
will, perhaps, have it often said to you that this body-
colour is "illegitimate." It is just as legitimate as
oil-painting, being, so far as handling is concerned,
the same process, only without its uncleanliness, its
unwholesomeness, or its inconvenience ; for oil will
not dry quickly, nor carry safely, nor give the same
effects of atmosphere without tenfold labour. And
if you hear it said that the body-colour looks chalky
or opaque, and, as is very likely, think so yourself, be
yet assured of this, that though certain effects of glow
and transparencies of gloom are not to be reached
without transparent colour, those glows and glooms
are not the noblest aim of art. After many years'
study of the various results of fresco and oil painting
in Italy, and of body-colour and transparent-colour
in England, I am now entirely convinced that the
greatest things that are to be done in art must be
done in dead colour. The habit of depending on
varnish or on lucid tints for transparency, makes the
painter comparatively lose sight of the nobler trans-
lucence which is obtained by breaking various colours
amidst each other : and even when, as by Correggio,
exquisite play of hue is joined with exquisite
transparency, the delight in the depth almost always
leads the painter into mean and false chiaroscuro ;
it leads him to like dark backgrounds instead of
luminous ones1, and to enjoy, in general, quality of
1 All the degradation of art which was brought about, after
the rise of the Dutch school, by asphaltum, yellow varnish, and
n8 The Elements of Drawing
colour more than grandeur of composition, and
confined light rather than open sunshine : so that
the really greatest thoughts of the greatest men
have always, so far as I remember, been reached in
dead colour, and the noblest oil pictures of Tintoret
and Veronese are those which are likest frescos.
Besides all this, the fact is, that though sometimes
a little chalky and coarse-looking, body-colour is, in
a sketch, infinitely liker nature than transparent
colour : the bloom and mist of distance are accurately
and instantly represented by the film of opaque blue
{quite accurately, I think, by nothing else) ; and for
ground, rocks, and buildings, the earthy and solid
surface is, of course, always truer than the most
finished and carefully wrought work in transparent
tints can ever be.
Against one thing, however, I must steadily caution
you. All kinds of colour are equally illegitimate, if
you think they will allow you to alter at your pleasure,
or blunder at your ease. There is no vehicle or
brown trees, would have been prevented, if only painters had
been forced to work in dead colour. Any colour will do for
some people, if it is browned and shining ; but fallacy in dead
colour is detected on the instant. I even believe that when-
ever a painter begins to wish that he could touch any portion
of his work with gum, he is going wrong.
It is necessary, however, in this matter, carefully to dis-
tinguish between translucency and lustre. Translucency,
though, as I have said above, a dangerous temptation, is, in
its place, beautiful ; but lustre or shininess is always, in painting,
a defect. Nay, one of my best painter-friends (the " best "
being understood to attach to both divisions of that awkward
compound word,) tried the other day to persuade me that
lustre was an ignobleness in anything ; and it was only the fear
of treason to ladies' eyes, and to mountain streams, and to
morning dew, which kept me from yielding the point to him.
One is apt always to generalise too quickly in such matters ;
but there can be no question that lustre is destructive of love-
liness in colour, as it is of intelligibility in form. Whatever
may be the pride of a young beauty in the knowledge that her
eyes shine (though perhaps even eyes are most beautiful in
dimness), she would be sorry if her cheeks did ; and which
of us would wish to polish a rose ?
On Colour and Composition 119
method of colour which admits of alteration or
repentance ; you must be right at once, or never ;
and you might as well hope to catch a rifle bullet in
your hand, and put it straight, when it was going
wrong, as to recover a tint once spoiled. The secret
of all good colour in oil, water, or anything else, lies
primarily in that sentence spoken to me by Mulready :
" Know what you have to do." The process may be
a long one, perhaps : you may have to ground with
one colour ; to touch it with fragments of a second ;
to crumble a third into the interstices ; a fourth into
the interstices of the third ; to glaze the whole with
a fifth ; and to reinforce in points with a sixth : but
whether you have one, or ten, or twenty processes to
go through, you must go straight through them, know-
ingly and foreseeingly all the way ; and if you get
the thing once wrong, there is no hope for you but in
washing or scraping boldly down to the white ground,
and beginning again.
The drawing in body-colour will tend to teach you
all this, more than any other method, and above all
it will prevent you from falling into the pestilent
habit of sponging to get texture ; a trick which has
nearly ruined our modern water-colour school of
art. There are sometimes places in which a skilful
artist will roughen his paper a little to get certain
conditions of dusty colour with more ease than he
could otherwise ; and sometimes a skilfully rased
piece of paper will, in the midst of transparent tints,
answer nearly the purpose of chalky body-colour in
representing the surfaces of rocks or building. But
artifices of this kind are always treacherous in a
tyro's hands, tempting him to trust in them : and
you had better always work on white or grey paper
as smooth as silk 1 ; and never disturb the surface
1 But not shiny or greasy. Bristol board, or hot-pressed
imperial, or grey paper that feels slighdy adhesive to the
hand, is best. Coarse, gritty, and sandy papers are fit only
for blotters and blunderers ; no good draughtsman would lay
120 The Elements of Drawing
of your colour or paper, except finally to scratch out
the very highest lights if you are using transparent
colours.
I have said above that body-colour drawing will
teach you the use of colour better than working with
merely transparent tints ; but this is not because the
process is an easier one, but because it is a more
complete one, and also because it involves some work-
ing with transparent tints in the best way. You
are not to think that because you use body-colour
you may make any kind of mess that you like, and
yet get out of it. But you are to avail yourself of
the characters of your material, which enable you
most nearly to imitate the processes of Nature.
Thus, suppose you have a red rocky cliff to sketch,
with blue clouds floating over it. You paint your
cliff first firmly, then take your blue, mixing it to
such a tint (and here is a great part of the skill
needed), that when it is laid over the red, in the
thickness required for the effect of the mist, the
warm rock-colour showing through the blue cloud-
colour, may bring it to exactly the hue you want ;
(your upper tint, therefore, must be mixed colder than
you want it ;) then you lay it on, varying it as you
strike it, getting the forms of the mist at once, and,
if it be rightly done, with exquisite quality of colour,
from the warm tint's showing through and between
the particles of the other. When it is dry, you may
add a little colour to retouch the edges where they
want shape, or heighten the lights where they want
roundness, or put another tone over the whole : but
you can take none away. If you touch or disturb
the surface, or by any untoward accident mix the
under and upper colours together, all is lost irrecover-
ably. Begin your drawing from the ground again if
a line on them. Turner worked much on a thin tough paper,
dead in surface ; rolling up his sketches in tight bundles that
would go deep into his pockets.
On Colour and Composition 121
you like, or throw it into the fire if you like. But do
not waste time in trying to mend it.1
This discussion of the relative merits of transparent
and opaque colour has, however, led us a little beyond
the point where we should have begun ; we must go
back to our palette, if you please. Get a cake of
each of the hard colours named in the note below 2
and try experiments on their simple combinations,
by mixing each colour with every other. If you like
to do it in an orderly way, you may prepare a squared
piece of pasteboard, and put the pure colours in
columns at the top and side ; the mixed tints being
1 I insist upon this unalterability of colour the more because
I address you as a beginner, or an amateur : a great artist
can sometimes get out of a difficulty with credit, or repent
without confession. Yet even Titian's alterations usually show
as stains on his work.
2 It is, I think, a piece of affectation to try to work with few
colours : it saves time to have enough tints prepared without
mixing, and you may at once allow yourself these twenty-four.
If you arrange them in your colour box in the order I have set
them down, you will always easily put your finger on the one
you want.
Cobalt. Smalt. Antwerp blue. Prussian blue.
Black. Gamboge, Emerald green. Hooker's greens
Lemon yellow. Cadmium yellow. Yellow ochre. Roman ochre.
Raw sienna. Burnt sienna. Light red. Indian red.
Mars orange. Extract of ver- Carmine. Violet carmine.
miiion.
Brown madder. Burnt umber. Vandyke brown. Sepia.
Antwerp blue and Prussian blue are not very permanent
colours, but you need not care much about permanence in
your work as yet, and they are both beautiful ; while Indigo
is marked by Field as more fugitive still, and is very ugly.
Hooker's green is a mixed colour, put in the box merely to save
you loss of time in mixing gamboge and Prussian blue. No. i.
is the best tint of it. Violet carmine is a noble colour for
laying broken shadows with, to be worked into afterwards
with other colours.
If you wish to take up colouring seriously you had better
get Field's " Chromatography " at once; only do not attend
to anything it says about principles or harmonies of colour ;
but only to its statements of practical serviceableness in pig-
ments, and of their operations on each other when mixed, &c
122 The Elements of Drawing
given at the intersections, thus (the letters standing
for colours) : —
bed e f &c.
aab a c ad ae af
b— be bd be bf
C — • — cd ce cf
d — — d e d f
e — — — — e f
&c.
This will give you some general notion of the
characters of mixed tints of two colours only, and it
is better in practice to confine yourself as much as
possible to these, and to get
more complicated colours either
by putting a third over the first
J^T^J^ blended tint, or by putting the
c*^ R third into its interstices. Nothing
a but watchful practice will teach
I you the effects that colours have
on each other when thus put
mmmmamumm over, or beside, each other.
Fig. 29. When you have got a little
used to the principal combina-
tions, place yourself at a window which the sun
does not shine in at, commanding some simple
piece of landscape : outline this landscape roughly ;
then take a piece of white cardboard, cut out a hole
in it about the size of a large pea ; and supposing r
is the room, a d the window, and you are sitting at a,
Fig. 29., hold this cardboard a little outside of the
window, upright, and in the direction b d, parallel to
the side of the window, or a little turned, so as to
catch more light, as at a d, never turned as at c d, or
the paper will be dark. Then you will see the land-
scape, bit by bit, through the circular hole. Match
the colours of each important bit as nearly as you
can, mixing your tints with white, beside the aper-
ture. When matched, put a touch of the same tint
On Colour and Composition 123
at the top of your paper, writing under it : " dark tree
colour," "hill colour," "field colour," as the case
may be. Then wash the tint away from beside the
opening, and the cardboard will be ready to match
another piece of the landscape.1 When you have got
the colours of the principal masses thus indicated,
lay on a piece of each in your sketch in its right
place, and then proceed to complete the sketch in
harmony with them, by your eye.
In the course of your early experiments, you will
be much struck by two things : the first, the inimit-
able brilliancy of light in sky and in sun-lighted
things ; and the second, that among the tints which
you can imitate, those which you thought the darkest
will continually turn out to be in reality the lightest.
Darkness of objects is estimated by us under ordi-
nary circumstances, much more by knowledge than
by sight ; thus, a cedar or Scotch fir, at 200 yards off,
will be thought of darker green than an elm or oak
near us ; because we know by experience that the
peculiar colour they exhibit, at that distance, is the
sign of darkness of foliage. But when we try them
through the cardboard, the near oak will be found,
indeed, rather dark green, and the distant cedar,
perhaps, pale grey-purple. The quantity of purple
and grey in Nature is, by the way, another somewhat
surprising subject of discovery.
Well, having ascertained thus your principal tints,
you may proceed to fill up your sketch ; in doing
which observe these following particulars :
1 A more methodical, though, under general circumstances,
uselessly prolix way, is to cut a square hole, some half an inch
wide, in the sheet of cardboard, and a series of small circular
holes in a slip of cardboard an inch wide. Pass the slip over
the square opening, and match each colour beside one of the
circular openings. You will thus have no occasion to wash
any of the colours away. But the first rough method is gener-
ally all you want, as, after a little practice, you only need to
look at the hue through the opening in order to be able to
transfer it to your drawing at once.
124 The Elements of Drawing
i. Many portions of your subject appeared through
the aperture in the paper brighter than the paper, as
sky, sun-lig"hted grass, &c. Leave these portions,
for the present, white ; and proceed with the parts of
which you can match the tints.
2. As you tried your subject with the cardboard,
you must have observed how many changes of hue
took place over small spaces. In filling up your
work, try to educate your eye to perceive these
differences of hue without the help of the cardboard,
and lay them deliberately, like a mosaic-worker, as
separate colours, preparing each carefully on your
palette, and laying it as if it were a patch of coloured
cloth, cut out, to be fitted neatly by its edge to the
next patch ; so that the fau/t of your work may be,
not a slurred or misty look, but a patched bed-
cover look, as if it had all been cut out with scissors.
For instance, in drawing the trunk of a birch tree,
there will be probably white high lights, then a pale
rosy grey round them on the light side, then a (pro-
bably greenish) deeper grey on the dark side, varied
by reflected colours, and, over all, rich black strips of
bark and brown spots of moss. Lay first the rosy
grey, leaving white for the high lights and for the spots
of moss, and not touching the dark side. Then lay
the grey for the dark side, fitting it well up to the
rosy grey of the light, leaving also in this darker
grey the white paper in the places for the black and
brown moss ; then prepare the moss colours separ-
ately for each spot, and lay each in the white place
left for it. Not one grain of white, except that pur-
posely left for the high lights, must be visible when
the work is done, even through a magnifying-glass,
so cunningly must you fit the edges to each other.
Finally, take your background colours, and put them
on each side of the tree-trunk, fitting them carefully
to its edge.
Fine work you would make of this, wouldn't you,
if you had not learned to draw first, and could not
On Colour and Composition 125
now draw a good outline for the stem, much less
terminate a colour mass in the outline you wanted ?
Your work will look very odd for some time, when
you first begin to paint in this way, and before
you can modify it, as I shall tell you presently how ;
but never mind ; it is of the greatest possible import-
ance that you should practise this separate laying on
of the hues, for all good colouring finally depends on
it. It is, indeed, often necessary, and sometimes
desirable, to lay one colour and form boldly over
another : thus, in laying leaves on blue sky, it is im-
possible always in large pictures, or when pressed for
time, to fill in the blue through the interstice*, of the
leaves ; and the great Venetians constantly lay their
blue ground first, and then, having let it dry, strike
the golden brown over it in the form of the leaf,
leaving the under blue to shine through the gold,
and subdue it to the olive-green they want. But in
the most precious and perfect work each leaf is inlaid,
and the blue worked round it ; and, whether you
use one or other mode of getting your result, it is
equally necessary to be absolute and decisive in your
laying the colour. Either your ground must be laid
firmly first, and then your upper colour struck upon
it in perfect form, for ever, thenceforward, unalter-
able ; or else the two colours must be individually
put in their places, and led up to each other till they
meet at their appointed border, equally, thence-
forward, unchangeable. Either process, you see,
involves absolwe decision. If you once begin to slur,
or change, or sketch, or try this way and that with
your colour, it is all over with it and with you. You
will continually see bad copyists trying to imitate the
Venetians, by daubing their colours about, and re-
touching, and finishing, and softening : when every
touch and every added hue only lead them farther
into chaos. There is a dog between two children in
a Veronese in the Louvre, which gives the copyists
much employment. He has a dark ground behind
126 The Elements of Drawing
him, which Veronese has painted first, and then
when it was dry, or nearly so, struck the locks of
the dog's white hair over it with some half dozen
curling sweeps of his brush, right at once, and for
ever. Had one line or hair of them gone wrong, it
would have been wrong for ever ; no retouching
could have mended it. The poor copyists daub in
first some background, and then some dog's hair ;
then retouch the background, then the hair ; work
for hours at it, expecting it always to come right to-
morrow— " when it is finished." They may work for
centuries at it, and they will never do it. If they
can do it with Veronese's allowance of work, half a
dozen sweeps of the hand over the dark background,
well ; if not, they may ask the dog himself whether
it will ever come right, and get true answer from
him — on Launce's conditions: "If he say 'ay,' it
will ; if he say ' no,' it will ; if he shake his tail and
say nothing, it will."
3. Whenever you lay on a mass of colour, be sure
that however large it may be, or however small, it
shall be gradated. No colour exists in Nature under
ordinary circumstances without gradation. If you
do not see this, it is the fault of your inexperience :
you will see it in due time, if you practise enough.
But in general you may see it at once. In the birch
trunk, for instance, the rosy grey must be gradated
by the roundness of the stem till it meets the shaded
side ; similarly the shaded side is gradated by re-
flected light. Accordingly, whether by adding water,
or white paint, or by unequal force of touch (this you
will do at pleasure, according to the texture you
wish to produce), you must, in every tint you lay on,
make it a little paler at one part than another, and
get an even gradation between the two depths.
This is very like laying down a formal law or recipe
for you ; but you will find it is merely the assertion
of a natural fact. It is not indeed physically impos-
sible to meet with an ungradated piece of colour, but
On Colour and Composition 127
it is so supremely improbable, that you had better get
into the habit of asking yourself invariably, when you
are going to copy a tint, — not " Is that gradated ? "
but " Which way is that gradated? " and at least in
ninety-nine out of a hundred instances, you will be
able to answer decisively after a careful glance,
though the gradation may have been so subtle that
you did not see it at first. And it does not matter
how small the touch of colour may be, though not
larger than the smallest pin's head, if one part of it
is not darker than the rest, it is a bad touch ; for it
is not merely because the natural fact is so, that your
colour should be gradated ; the preciousness and
pleasantness of the colour itself depends more on this
than on any other of its qualities, for gradation is to
colours just what curvature is to lines, both being felt
to be beautiful by the pure instinct of ever}- human
mind, and both, considered as types, expressing the
law of gradual change and progress in the human
soul itself. What the difference is in mere beauty
between a gradated and ungradated colour, may be
seen easily by laying an even tint of rose-colour on
paper, and putting a rose-leaf beside it. The vic-
torious beauty of the rose as compared with other
flowers, depends wholly on the delicacy and quantity
of its colour gradations, all other flowers being either
less rich in gradation, not having so many folds of
leaf; or less tender, being patched and veined
instead of flushed.
4. But observe, it is not enough in general that
colour should be gradated by being made merely
paler or darker at one place than another. Generally
colour changes as it diminishes, and is not merely
darker at one spot, but also purer at one spot than
anywhere else. It does not in the least follow that
the darkest spot should be the purest ; still less so
that the lightest should be the purest. Very often
the two gradations more or less cross each other,
one passing in one direction from paleness to dark-
128 The Elements of Drawing
ness, another in another direction from purity to
dullness, but there will almost always be both of
them, however reconciled ; and you must never be
satisfied with a piece of colour until you have got
both : that is to say, every piece of blue that you lay
on must be quite blue only at some given spot, nor
that a large spot ; and must be gradated from that
into less pure blue, — greyish blue, or greenish blue,
or purplish blue, — over all the rest of the space it
occupies. And this you must do in one of three
ways : either, while the colour is wet, mix with it the
colour which is to subdue it, adding gradually a little
more and a little more ; or else, when the colour is
quite dry, strike a gradated touch of another colour
over it, leaving only a point of the first tint visible ;
or else, lay the subduing tints on in small touches, as
in the exercise of tinting the chess-board. Of each
of these methods I have something to tell you
separately : but that is distinct from the subject of
gradation, which I must not quit without once more
pressing upon you the preeminent necessity of intro-
ducing it everywhere. I have profound dislike of
anything like habit of hand, and yet, in this one in-
stance, I feel almost tempted to encourage you to get
into a habit of never touching paper with colour,
without securing a gradation. You will not, in
Turner's largest oil pictures, perhaps six or seven
feet long by four or five high, find one spot of colour
as large as a grain of wheat ungradated : and you
will find in practice, that brilliancy of hue, and vigour
of light, and even the aspect of transparency in
shade, are essentially dependent on this character
alone ; hardness, coldness, and opacity resulting far
more from equality of colour than from nature of
colour. Give me some mud off a city crossing, some
ochre out of a gravel pit, a little whitening, and some
coal-dust, and I will paint you a luminous picture, if
you give me time to gradate my mud, and subdue
my dust : but though you had the red of the ruby,
On Colour and Composition 129
the blue of the gentian, snow for the light, and amber
for the gold, you cannot paint a luminous picture, if
you keep the masses of those colours unbroken in
purity, and unvarying in depth.
5. Next, note the three processes by which grada-
tion and other characters are to be obtained :
A. Mixing while the colour is wet.
You may be confused by my first telling you to lay
on the hues in separate patches, and then telling you
to mix hues together as you lay them on : but the
separate masses are to be laid, when colours dis-
tinctly oppose each other at a given limit ; the hues
to be mixed, when they palpitate one through the
other, or fade one into the other. It is better to-
err a little on the distinct side. Thus I told you to
paint the dark and light sides of the birch trunk
separately, though, in reality, the two tints change,,
as the trunk turns away from the light, gradually
one into the other ; and, after being laid separately
on, will need some farther touching to harmonise
them : but they do so in a very narrow space,
marked distinctly all the way up the trunk ; and it is
easier and safer, therefore, to keep them separate at
first. Whereas it often happens that the whole
beauty of two colours will depend on the one being
continued well through the other, and playing in the
midst of it : blue and green often do so in water ;
blue and grey, or purple and scarlet, in sky : in
hundreds of such instances the most beautiful and
truthful results may be obtained by laying one colour
into the other while wet ; judging wisely how far it
will spread, or blending it with the brush in some-
what thicker consistence of wet body-colour ; only
observe, never mix in this way two mixtures ; let the
colour you lay into the other be always a simple, not
a compound tint.
B. Laying one colour over another.
If you lay on a solid touch of vermilion, and, after
it is quite dry, strike a little very wet carmine quickly
K
130 The Elements of Drawing
over it, you will obtain a much more brilliant red
than by mixing the carmine and vermilion. Similarly,
if you lay a dark colour first, and strike a little blue
or white body-colour lightly over it, you will get a
more beautiful grey than by mixing the colour and
the blue or white. In very perfect painting, artifices
of this kind are continually used ; but I would not
have you trust much to them : they are apt to make
you think too much of quality of colour. I should
like you to depend on little more than the dead colours,
simply laid on, only observe always this, that the
less colour you do the work with, the better it will
always be1 : so that if you have laid a red colour,
and you want a purple one above, do not mix the
purple on your palette and lay it on so thick as to
overpower the red, but take a little thin blue from
your palette, and lay it lightly over the red, so as
to let the red be seen through, and thus produce the
required purple ; and if you want a green hue over
a blue one, do not lay a quantity of green on the
blue, but a little yellow, and so on, always bringing
the under colour into service as tar as you possibly
can. If, however, the colour beneath is wholly
opposed to the one you have to lay on, as, suppose,
if green is to be laid over scarlet, you must either
remove the required parts of the under colour daintily
first with your knife, or with water ; or else, lay
solid white over it massively, and leave that to dry,
and then glaze the white with the upper colour.
This is better, in general, than laying the upper
colour itself so thick as to conquer the ground,
which, in fact, if it be a transparent colour, you
cannot do. Thus, if you have to strike warm boughs
1 If colours were twenty times as costly as the}' are, we
should have many more good painters. If I were Chancellor
of the Exchequer I would lay a tax of twenty shillings a cake
on all colours except black, Prussian blue, Vandyke brown,
and Chinese white, which I would leave tor students. I don't
say this jestingly ; I believe such a tax would do more to
advance real art than a great many schools of design.
On Colour and Composition 131
and leaves of trees over blue sky, and they are too
intricate to have their places left for them in laying
the blue, it is better to lay them first in solid white,
and then glaze with sienna and ochre, than to mix
the sienna and white ; though, of course, the process
is longer and more troublesome. Nevertheless, if
the forms of touches required are very delicate, the
after glazing is impossible. You must then mix the
warm colour thick at once, and so use it : and
this is often necessary for delicate grasses, and such
other fine threads of light in foreground work.
C. Breaking one colour in small points through
or over another.
This is the most important of all processes in good
modern 1 oil and water-colour painting, but you need
not hope to attain very great skill in it. To do it
well is very laborious, and requires such skill and
delicacy of hand as can only be acquired by un-
ceasing practice. But you will find advantage in
noting the following points :
(a.) In distant effects of rich subject, wood, or
rippled water, or broken clouds, much may be done
by touches or crumbling dashes of rather dry colour,
with other colours afterwards put cunningly into
the interstices. The more you practise this, when
the subject evidently calls for it, the more your eye
will enjoy the higher qualities of colour. The pro-
cess is, in fact, the carrying out of the principle of
separate colours to the utmost possible refinement ;
using atoms of colour in juxtaposition instead of
large spaces. And note, in filling up minute inter-
stices of this kind, that if you want the colour you
fill them with to show brightly, it is better to put
a rather positive point of it, with a little white left
beside or round it in the interstice, than to put
1 I say mtxieni, because Titian's quiet way of blending
colours, which is hi perfectly right one, is not understood
now by any arti«»i. The best colour we reach is got by
stippling ; but this is not quite right
132 The Elements of Drawing
a pale tint of the colour over the whole interstice.
Yellow or orange will hardly show, if pale, in small
spaces ; but they show brightly in firm touches,
however small, with white beside them.
{b.) If a colour is to be darkened by superimposed
portions of another, it is, in many cases, better to
lay the uppermost colour in rather vigorous small
touches, like finely chopped straw, over the under
one, than to lay it on as a tint, for two reasons :
the first, that the play of the two colours together
is pleasant to the eye ; the second, that much ex-
pression of form may be got by wise administration
of the upper dark touches. In distant mountains
they may be made pines of, or broken crags, or
villages, or stones, or whatever you choose ; in clouds
they may indicate the direction of the rain, the
roll and outline of the cloud masses ; and in water,
the minor waves. All noble effects of dark atmo-
sphere are got in good water-colour drawing by
these two expedients, interlacing the colours, or
retouching the lower one with fine darker drawing
in an upper. Sponging and washing for dark atmo-
spheric effect is barbarous, and mere tyro's work,
though it is often useful for passages of delicate
atmospheric light.
(c. ) When you have time, practise the production
of mixed tints by interlaced touches of the pure
colours out of which they are formed, and use the
process at the parts of your sketches where you wish
to get rich and luscious effects. Study the works of
William Hunt, of the Old Water-colour Society, in
this respect, continually, and make frequent memor-
anda of the variegations in flowers ; not painting
the flower completely, but laying the ground colour
of one petal, and painting the spots on it with
studious precision : a series of single petals of lilies,
geraniums, tulips, &c, numbered with proper refer-
ence to their position in the flower, will be interesting
to you on many grounds besides those of art. Be
On Colour and Composition 133
careful to get the gradated distribution of the spots
well followed in the calceolarias, foxgloves, and the
like ; and work out the odd, indefinite hues of the
spots themselves with minute grains of pure interlaced
colour, otherwise you will never get their richness or
bloom. You will be surprised to find as you do
this, first, the universality of the law of gradation
we have so much insisted upon ; secondly, that
Nature is just as economical of her fine colours as
I have told you to be of yours. You would think,
by the way she paints, that her colours cost her
something enormous : she will only give you a single
pure touch, just where the petal turns into light ;
but down in the bell all is subdued, and under the
petal all is subdued, even in the showiest flower.
What you thought was bright blue is, when you look
close, only dusty grey, or green, or purple, or every
colour in the world at once, only a single gleam or
streak of pure blue in the centre of it. And so with
all her colours. Sometimes I have really thought
her miserliness intolerable : in a gentian, for instance,
the way she economises her ultramarine down in the
bell is a little too bad.
Next, respecting general tone. I said, just now,
that, for the sake of students, my tax should not be
laid on black or on white pigments ; but if you mean
to be a colourist, you must lay a tax on them your-
self when you begin to use true colour ; that is to
say, you must use them little, and make of them
much. There is no better test of your colour tones
being good, than your having made the white in
your picture precious, and the black conspicuous.
I say, first, the white precious. I do not mean
merely glittering or brilliant : it is easy to scratch
white sea-gulls out of black clouds, and dot clumsy
foliage with chalky dew ; but, when white is well
managed, it ought to be strangely delicious, — tender
as well as bright,— like inlaid mother of pearl, or
white roses washed in milk. The eye ought to seek
134 The Elements of Drawing
it for rest, brilliant though it may be ; and to feel it
as a space of strange, heavenly paleness in the
midst of the flushing of the colours. This effect
you can only reach by general depth of middle tint,
by absolutely refusing to allow any white to exist
except where you need it, and by keeping the white
itself subdued by grey, except at a few points of
chief lustre.
Secondly, you must make the black conspicuous.
However small a point of black may be, it ought to
catch the eye, otherwise your work is too heavy in
the shadow. All the ordinary shadows should be of
some colour, — never black, nor approaching black,
they should be evidently and always of a luminous
nature, and the black should look strange among
them ; never occurring except in a black object, or
in small points indicative of intense shade in the very
centre of masses of shadow. Shadows of absolutely
negative grey, however, may be beautifully used with
white, or with gold ; but still though the black thus,
in subdued strength, becomes spacious, it should
always be conspicuous ; the spectator should notice
this grey neutrality with some wonder, and enjoy,
all the more intensely on account of it, the gold
colour and the white which it relieves. Of all the
great colourists Velasquez is the greatest master of
the black chords. His black is more precious than
most other people's crimson.
It is not, however, only white and black which you
must make valuable ; you must give rare worth to
every colour you use ; but the white and black ought
to separate themselves quaintly from the rest, while
the other colours should be continually passing one
into the other, being all evidently companions in the
same gay world ; while the white, black, and neutral
grey should stand monkishly aloof in the midst of
them. You may melt your crimson into purple,
your purple into blue, and your biue into green, but
you must not melt any of them into black. You
On Colour and Composition 135
should, however, try, as I said, to give preciousness
to all your colours ; and this especially by never
using a grain more than will just do the work, and
giving each hue the highest value by opposition.
All fine colouring, like fine drawing, is delicate; and
so delicate that if, at last, you see the colour you are
putting on, you are putting on too much. You
ought to feel a change wrought in the general tone,
by touches of colour which individually are too pale
to be seen ; and if there is one atom of any colour in
the whole picture which is unnecessary to it, that atom
hurts it.
Notice also that nearly all good compound colours
are odd colours. You shall look at a hue in a good
painter's work ten minutes before you know what to
call it. You thought it was brown, presently you feel
that it is red ; next that there is, somehow, yellow in
it ; presently afterwards that there is blue in it. If
you try to copy it you will always find your colour
too warm or too cold -no colour in the box will seem
to have any affinity with it ; and yet it will be as pure
as it it were laid at a single touch with a single
colour.
As to the choice and harmony of colours in general^
if you cannot choose and harmonise them by instinct,
you will never do it at all. If you need examples of
utterly harsh and horrible colour, you may find plenty
given in treatises upon colouring, to illustrate the
laws of harmony ; and if you want to colour beauti-
fully, colour as best pleases yourself at quiet times,
not so as to catch the eye, nor to look as if it were
clever or difficult to colour in that way, but so that
the colour may be pleasant to you when you are
happy, or thoughtful. Look much at the morning
and evening sky, and much at simple flowers, — dog-
roses, wood hyacinths, violets, poppies, thistles,
heather, and such like, — as Nature arranges them
in the woods and fields. If ever any scientific person
tells you that two colours are " discordant," make a
136 The Elements of Drawing
note of the two colours, and put them together when-
ever you can. I have actually heard people say that
blue and green were discordant ; the two colours
"which Nature seems to intend never to be separated,
and never to be felt, either of them, in its full beauty
without the other ! — a peacock's neck, or a blue sky
through green leaves, or a blue wave with green
lights through it, being precisely the loveliest things,
next to clouds at sunrise, in this coloured world of
ours. If you have a good eye for colours, you will
soon find out how constantly Nature puts purple and
green together, purple and scarlet, green and blue,
yellow and neutral grey, and the like ; and how she
strikes these colour-concords for general tones, and
then works into them with innumerable subordinate
ones ; and you will gradually come to like what she
does, and find out new and beautiful chords of colour
in her work every day. If you enjoy them, depend
upon it you will paint them to a certain point right :
or, at least, if you do not enjoy them, you are certain
to paint them wrong. If colour does not give you
intense pleasure, let it alone ; depend upon it, you are
only tormenting the eyes and senses of people who
feel colour, whenever you touch it ; and that is unkind
and improper. You will find, also, your power of
colouring depend much on your state of health and
right balance of mind ; when you are fatigued or ill
you will not see colours well, and when you are ill-
tempered you will not choose them well : thus, though
not infallibly a test of character in individuals, colour
power is a great sign of mental health in nations ;
when they are in a state of intellectual decline, their
colouring always gets dull.1 You must also take
great care not to be misled by affected talk about
colours from people who have not the gift of it :
1 The worst general character that colour can possibly have
is a prevalent tendency to a dirty yellowish green, like that of
a decaying heap of vegetables ; this colour is accurately indica-
tive of decline or paralysis in missal-painting.
On Colour and Composition 137
numbers are eager and voluble about it who probably
never in all their lives received one genuine colour-
sensation. The modern religionists of the school of
Overbeck are just like people who eat slate-pencil and
chalk, and assure everybody that they are nicer and
purer than strawberries and plums.
Take care also never to be misled into any idea
that colour can help or display form ; colour l always
disguises form, and is meant to do so.
It is a favourite dogma among modern writers
on colour that "warm colours" (reds and yellows)
" approach " or express nearness, and " cold colours "
(blue and grey) " retire" or express distance. So far
is this from being the case, that no expression of
distance in the world is so great as that of the gold
and orange in twilight sky. Colours, as such, are
absolutely inexpressive respecting distance. It is
their quality (as depth, delicacy, &c.) which expresses
distance, not their tint. A blue bandbox set on the
same shelf with a yellow one will not look an inch
farther off, but a red or orange cloud, in the upper
sky, will always appear to be beyond a blue cloud
close to us, as it is in reality. It is quite true that in
certain objects, blue is a sign of distance ; but that is
not because blue is a retiring colour, but because the
1 That is to say, local colour inherent in the object. The
gTadations of colour in the various shadows belonging' to
various lights exh bit form, and therefore no one but a colourist
can ever draw forms perfectly (see Modern Painters, vol. iv. chap,
iii. at the end) ; but all notions of explaining form by super-
imposed colour, as in architectural mouldings, are absurd.
Colour adorns form, but does not interpret it. An apple is
prettier because it is striped, but it does not look a bit rounder ;
and a cheek is prettier because it is flushed, but you would see
the form of the cheek bone better if it were not. Colour may,
indeed, detach one shape from another, as in grounding a bas-
relief, but it always diminishes the appearance of projection,
and whether you put blue, purple, red, yellow, or green, for
your ground, the bas-relief will be just as clearly or just as
imperfectly relieved, as long as the colours are of equal depth.
The blue ground will not retire the hundredth part of an inch
more than the red one.
138 The Elements of Drawing
mist in the air is blue, and therefore any warm colour
which has not strength of light enough to pierce the
mist is lost or subdued in its blue : but blue is no
more, on this account, a "retiring colour," than
brown is a retiring colour, because, when stones are
seen through brown water, the deeper they lie the
browner they look ; or than yellow is a retiring colour,
because, when objects are seen through a London fog,
the farther off they are the yellower they look. Neither
blue, nor yellow, nor red, can have, as such, the smallest
power of expressing either nearness or distance : they
express them only under the peculiar circumstances
which render them at the moment, or in that place,
signs of nearness or distance. Thus, vivid orange in
an orange is a sign of nearness, for if you put the
orange a great way off, its colour will not look so
bright ; but vivid orange in sky is a sign of distance,
because you cannot get the colour of orange in a
cloud near you. So purple in a violet or a hyacinth
is a sign of nearness, because the closer you look at
them the more purple you see. But purple in a moun-
tain is a sign of distance, because a mountain close
to you is not purple, but green or grey. It may,
indeed, be generally assumed that a tender or pale
colour will more or less express distance, and a
powerful or dark colour nearness ; but even this is
not always so. Heathery hills will usually give a
pale and tender purple near, and an intense and dark
purple far away ; the rose colour of sunset on snow
is pale on the snow at your feet, deep and full on the
snow in the distance ; and the green of a Swiss lake
is pale in the clear waves on the beach, but intense
as an emerald in the sunstreak, six miles from shore.
And in any case, when the foreground is in strong
light, with much water about it, or white surface,
casting intense reflections, all its colours may be
perfectly delicate, pale, and faint ; while the distance,
when it is in shadow, may relieve the whole fore-
ground with intense darks of purple, blue green, or
On Colour and Composition 139
ultramarine blue. So that, on the whole, it is quite
hopeless and absurd to expect any help from laws of
"aerial perspective." Look for the natural effects,
and set them down as fully as you can, and as faith-
fully, and never alter a colour because it won't look in
its right place. Put the colour strong, if it be strong,
though far off; faint, if it be faint, though close to
you. Why should you suppose that Nature always
means you to know exactly how far one thing is from
another? She certainly intends you always to enjoy
her colouring, but she does not wish you always to
measure her space. You would be hard put to it,
every time you painted the sun setting, if you had to
express his 95,000,000 miles of distance in " aerial
perspective."
There is, however, I think, one law about distance
which has some claims to be considered a constant
one : namely, that dullness and heaviness of colour
are more or less indicative of nearness. All distant
colour is pure colour : it may not be bright, but it is
clear and lovely, not opaque nor soiled ; for the air
and light coming between us and any earthy or im-
perfect colour, purify or harmonise it ; hence a bad
colourist is peculiarly incapable of expressing distance.
I do not of course mean that you are to use bad colours
in your foreground by way of making it come forward ;
but only that a failure in colour, there, will not put it
out of its place ; while a failure in colour in the distance
will at once do away with its remoteness : your dull-
coloured foreground will still be a foreground, though
ill-painted ; but your ill-painted distance will not be
merely a dull distance, — it will be no distance at all.
I have only one thing more to advise you, namely,
never to colour petulantly or hurriedly. You will
not, indeed, be able, if you attend properly to your
colouring, to get anything like the quantity of form
you could in a chiaroscuro sketch ; nevertheless, if
you do not dash or rush at your work, nor do it
lazily, you may always get enough form to be satis-
140 The Elements of Drawing
factory. An extra quarter of an hour, distributed in
quietness over the course of the whole study, may
just make the difference between a quite intelligible
drawing, and a slovenly and obscure one. If you
determine well beforehand what outline each piece
of colour is to have ; and, when it is on the paper,
guide it without nervousness, as far as you can, into
the form required ; and then, after it is dry, consider
thoroughly what touches are needed to complete it,
before laying one of them on ; you will be surprised
to find how masterly the work will soon look, as
compared with a
hurried or ill—
considered
sketch. In no
process that I
know of — least
of all in sketch-
ing— can time be
really gained by
precipitation. It
is gained only
— by caution ; and
gained in all
sorts of ways :
for not only truth of form, but force of light, is
always added by an intelligent and shapely laying
of the shadow colours. You may often make a simple
flat tint, rightly gradated and edged, express a com-
plicated piece of subject without a single retouch.
The two Swiss cottages, for instance, with their
balconies, and glittering windows, and general
character of shingly eaves, are expressed in Fig.
30. with one tint of grey, and a few dispersed spots
and lines of it ; all of which you ought to be able
to lay on without more than thrice dipping your
brush, and without a single touch after the tint
is dry.
Her';, then, for I cannot without coloured illustra-
Fig. 30.
On Colour and Composition 141
tions tell you more, I must leave you to follow out
the subject for yourself, with such help as you may
receive from the water-colour drawings accessible to
you ; or from any of the little treatises on their art
which have been published lately by our water-colour
painters.1 But do not trust much to works of this
kind. You may get valuable hints from them as to
mixture of colours ; and here and there you will find
a useful artifice or process explained ; but nearly all
such books are written only to help idle amateurs to
a meretricious skill, and they are full of precepts and
principles which may, for the most part, be interpreted
by their precise negatives, and then acted upon with
advantage. Most of them praise boldness, when the
only safe attendant spirit of a beginner is caution ; —
advise velocity, when the first condition of success is
deliberation ; — and plead for generalisation, when all
the foundations of power must be laid in knowledge
of speciality.
And now, in the last place, I have a lew things to
tell you respecting that dangerous nobleness of con-
summate art, — Composition. For though it is quite
unnecessary for you yet awhile to attempt it, and it
may be inexpedient for you to attempt it at all, you
ought to know what it means, and to look for and
enjoy it in the art of others.
Composition means, literally and simply, putting
several things together, so as to make one thing out
of them ; the nature and goodness of which they all
have a share in producing. Thus a musician com-
poses an air, by putting notes together in certain
relations ; a poet composes a poem, by putting
thoughts and words in pleasant order ; and a painter
a picture, by putting thoughts, forms, and colours in
pleasant order.
1 See, however, at the close of this letter, the notice of one
more point connected with the management of colour, under
the head " Law of Harmon v."
142 The Elements of Drawing
In all these cases, observe, an intended unity must
be the result of composition. A pavior cannot be
said to compose the heap of stones which he empties
from his cart, nor the sower the handful of seed
which he scatters from his hand. It is the essence
of composition that everything should be in a deter-
mined place, perform an intended part, and act, in that
part, advantageously for everything that is connected
with it.
Composition, understood in this pure sense, is the
type, in the arts of mankind, of the Providential
government of the world.1 It is an exhibition, in
the order given to notes, or colours, or forms, of the
advantage of perfect fellowship, discipline, and con-
tentment. In a well-composed air, no note, however
short or low, can be spared, but the least is as
necessary as the greatest : no note, however pro-
longed, is tedious ; but the others prepare for, and
are benefited by, its duration : no note, however
high, is tyrannous ; the others prepare for, and are
benefited by, its exaltation : no note, however low, is
overpowered ; the others prepare for, and sympathise
with, its humility : and the result is, that each and
every note has a value in the position assigned to it,
which, by itself, it never possessed, and of which, by
separation from the others, it would instantly be
deprived.
Similarly, in a good poem, each word and thought
enhances the value of those which precede and follow
it ; and every syllable has a loveliness which depends
not so much on its abstract sound as on its position.
Look at the same word in a dictionary, and you will
hardly recognise it.
Much more in a great picture ; every line and
colour is so arranged as to advantage the rest. None
are inessential, however slight ; and none are inde-
pendent, however forcible. It is not enough that
1 See farther, on this subject, Modern Painters, vol. iv.
chap. viii. § 6.
On Colour and Composition 143
they truly represent natural objects ; but they must
fit into certain places, and gather into certain har-
monious groups : so that, for instance, the red
chimney of a cottage is not merely set in its place
as a chimney, but that it may affect, in a certain
way pleasurable to the eye, the pieces of green or
blue in other parts of the picture ; and we ought
to see that the work is masterly, merely by the
positions and quantities of these patches of green,
red, and blue, even at a distance which renders it
perfectly impossible to determine what the colours
represent : or to see whether the red is a chimney,
or an old woman's cloak ; and whether the blue is
smoke, sky, or water.
It seems to be appointed, in order to remind us,
in all we do, of the great laws of Divine government
and human polity, that composition in the arts should
strongly affect every order of mind, however unlearned
or thoughtless. Hence the popular delight in rhythm
and metre, and in simple musical melodies But it
is also appointed that power of composition in the
fine arts should be an exclusive attribute of great
intellect. All men can more or less copy what they
see, and, more or less, remember it : powers of
reflection and investigation are also common to us
all, so that the decision of inferiority in these rests
only on questions of degree. A. has a better memory
than B., and C. reflects more profoundly than D.
But the gift of composition is not given at all to
more than one man in a thousand ; in its highest
range, it does not occur above three or four times in
a century.
It follows, from these general truths, that it is
impossible to give rules which will enable you to
compose. You might much more easily receive
rules to enable you to be witty. If it were possible
to be witty by rule, wit would cease to be either
admirable or amusing : if it were possible to compose
melody by rule, Mozart and Cimarosa need not have
144 The Elements of Drawing
been born : if it were possible to compose pictures
by rule, Titian and Veronese would be ordinary men.
The essence of composition lies precisely in the fact
of its being unteachable, in its being- the operation
of an individual mind of range and power exalted
above others.
But though no one can invent by rule, there are
some simple laws of arrangement which it is well
for you to know, because, though they will not
enable you to produce a good picture, they will
often assist you to set forth what goodness may
be in your work in a more telling way than you
could have done otherwise ; and by tracing them
in the work of good composers, you may better
understand the grasp of their imagination, and the
power it possesses over their materials. I shall
briefly state the chief of these laws.
I. THE LAW OF PRINCIPALITY
The great object of composition being always to
secure unity; that is, to make out of many things
one whole ; the first mode in which this can be
effected is, by determining that one feature shall be
more important than all
TA the rest, and that the
rnUA?* ^\lpr?' others shall group with
vM^ ^fs it in subordinate posi-
' tions.
c This is the simplest
law of ordinary orna-
mentation. Thus the
group of two leaves, a, Fig. 31., is unsatisfactory,
because it has no leading leaf; but that at b is
prettier, because it has a head or master leaf; and
c more satisfactory still, because the subordination
of the other members to this head leaf is made more
manifest by their gradual loss of size as they fall back
On Colour and Composition 145
from it. Hence part of the pleasure we have in the
Greek honeysuckle ornament, and such others.
Thus, also, good pictures have always one light
larger or brighter than the other lights, or one
figure more prominent than the other figures, or one
mass of colour dominant over all the other masses ;
and in general you will find it much benefit your
sketch if you manage that there shall be one light on
the cottage wall, or one blue cloud in the sky, which
may attract the eye as leading light, or leading
gloom, above all others. But the observance of the
rule is often so cunningly concealed by the great
composers, that its force is hardly at first traceable ;
and you will generally find they are vulgar pictures
in which the law is strikingly manifest This may be
simply illustrated by musical melody ; for instance, in
such phrases as this :
S7\
£S
51
±3VJ-
-^-
one note (here the upper g) rules the whole passage,
and has the full energy of it concentrated in itself.
Such passages, corresponding to completely subordi-
nated compositions in painting, are apt to be weari-
some if often repeated. But in such a phrase as
this:
_t — h
Is
■K
£•=£
$c.
146 The Elements of Drawing
it is very difficult to say which is the principal note.
The A in the last bar is slightly dominant, but there
is a very equal current of power running- through
the whole ; and such passages rarely weary. And
this principle holds through vast scales of arrange-
ment ; so that in the grandest compositions, such
as Paul Veronese's Marriage in Cana, or Raphael's
Disputa, it is not easy to fix at once on the principal
figure ; and very commonly the figure which is really
chief does not catch the eye at first, but is gradually
Fig. 32.
felt to be more and more conspicuous as we gaze.
Thus in Titian's grand composition of the Cornaro
Family, the figure meant to be principal is a youth
of fifteen or sixteen, whose portrait it was evidently
the painter's object to make as interesting as possible.
But a grand Madonna, and a St. George with a drifting
banner, and many figures more, occupy the centre of
the picture, and first catch the eye; little by little we
are led away from them to a gleam of pearly light in
the lower corner, and find that, from the head which
it shines upon, we can turn our eyes no more.
On Colour and Composition 147
As, in every good picture, nearly all laws of design
are more or less exemplified, it will, on the whole, be
an easier way of explaining them to analyse one
composition thoroughly, than to give instances from
various works. I shall therefore take one of Turner's
simplest; which will allow us, so to speak, easily to
decompose it, and illustrate each law by it as we
proceed.
Fig. 32. is a rude sketch of the arrangement
of the whole subject ; the old bridge over the
Moselle at Coblentz, the town of Coblentz on the
right, Ehrenbreitstein on the left The leading or
master feature is, of course, the tower on the
bridge. It is kept from being too principal by an
important group on each side of it ; the boats, on
the right, and Ehrenbreitstein beyond. The boats
are large in mass, and more forcible in colour, but
they are broken into small divisions, while the tower
is simple, and therefore it still leads. Ehrenbreitstein
is noble in its mass, but so reduced by aerial perspec-
tive of colour that it cannot contend with the tower,
which therefore holds the eye, and becomes the key
of the picture. We shall see presently how the very
objects which seem at first to contend with it for
the mastery are made, occultly, to increase its pre-
eminence.
2. THE LAW OF REPETITION
Another important means of expressing unity is to
mark some kind of sympathy among the different
objects, and perhaps the pleasantest, because most
surprising, kind of sympathy, is when one group
imitates or repeats another ; not in the way of balance
or symmetry, but subordinately, like a far-away and
broken echo of it. Prout has insisted much on this
law in all his writings on composition ; and I think
it is even more authoritatively present in the minds
148 The Elements of Drawing
of most great composers than the law of principality.
It is quite curious to see the pains that Turner some-
times takes to echo an important passage of colour ;
in the Pembroke Castle for instance, there are two
fishing-boats, one with a red, and another with a
white sail. In a line with them, on the beach, are
two fish in precisely the same relative positions ; one
red and one white. It is observable that he uses the
artifice chiefly in pictures where he wishes to obtain
an expression of repose : in my notice of the plate of
Scarborough, in the series of the Harbours of Eng-
land, I have already had occasion to dwell on this
point ; and I extract in the note l one or two sentences
which explain the principle. In the composition I
have chosen for our illustration, this reduplication
is employed to a singular extent. The tower, or
leading feature, is first repeated by the low echo of it
to the left ; put your finger over this lower tower, and
see how the picture is spoiled. Then the spires of
Coblentz are all arranged in couples (how they are
arranged in reality does not matter ; when we are
composing a great picture, we must play the towers
about till they come right, as fearlessly as if they were
chessmen instead of cathedrals). The dual arrange-
ment of these towers would have been too easily seen,
were it not for the little one which pretends to make
a triad of the last group on the right, but is so faint
as hardly to be discernible : it just takes off the
attention from the artifice, helped in doing so by the
mast at the head of the boat, which, however, has
1 " In general, throughout Nature, reflection and repetition
are peaceful things, associated with the idea of quiet succession
in events ; that one day should be like another day, or one
history the repetition of another history, being more or less
results of quietness, while dissimilarity and non-succession are
results of interference and disquietude. Thus, though an echo
actually increases the quantity of sound heard, its repetition of
the note or syllable gives an idea of calmness attainable in no
other way ; hence also the feeling of calm given to a landscape
by the voice of a cuckoo."
On Colour and Composition 149
instantly its own duplicate put at the stern.1 Then
there is the large boat near, and its echo beyond it.
That echo is divided into two again, and each of
those two smaller boats has two figures in it ; while
two figures are also sitting together on the great
rudder that lies half in the water, and half aground.
Then, finally, the great mass of Ehrenbreitstein, which
appears at first to have no answering form, has
almost its facsimile in the bank on which the girl is
sitting ; this bank is as absolutely essential to the
completion of the picture as any object in the whole
series. All this is done to deepen the effect of repose.
Symmetry, or the balance of parts or masses in
nearly equal opposition, is one of the conditions of
treatment under the law of Repetition. For the
opposition, in a symmetrical object, is of like things,
reflecting each other : it is not the balance of con-
trary natures (like that of day and night), but of like
natures or like forms ; one side of a leaf being set
like the reflection of the other in water.
Symmetry in Nature is, however, never formal hor
accurate. She takes the greatest care to secure some
difference between the corresponding things or parts
of things ; and an approximation to accurate sym-
metry is only permitted in animals, because their
motions secure perpetual difference between the
balancing parts. Stand before a mirror ; hold your
arms in precisely the same position at each side,
your head upright, your body straight ; divide your
hair exactly in the middle, and get it as nearly as
you can into exactly the same shape over each ear ;
and you will see the effect of accurate symmetry :
you will see, no less, how all grace and power in the
human form result from the interference of motion
and life with symmetry, and from the reconciliation
1 This is obscure in the rude woodcut, the masts being so
delicate that they are confused among the lines of reflection.
In the original they have orange light upon them, relieved
against purple behind.
150 The Elements of Drawing
of its balance with its changefulness. Your position,
as seen in the mirror, is the highest type of symmetry
as understood by modern architects.
In many sacred compositions, living- symmetry,
the balance of harmonious opposites, is one of the
profoundest sources of their power : almost any works
of the early painters, Angelico, Perugino, Giotto,
&c, will furnish you with notable instances of it.
The Madonna of Perugino in the National Gallery,
with the angel Michael on one side and Raphael on
the other, is as beautiful an example as you can
have.
In landscape, the principle of balance is more or
less carried out, in proportion to the wish of the
painter to express disciplined calmness. In bad
compositions, as in bad architecture, it is formal, a
tree on one side answering a tree on the other ; but
in good compositions, as in graceful statues, it is
always easy, and sometimes hardly traceable. In
the Coblentz, however, you cannot have much diffi-
culty in seeing how the boats on one side of the
tower and the figures on the other are set in nearly
equal balance ; the tower, as a central mass, uniting
both.
3. THE LAW OF CONTINUITY
Another important and pleasurable way of express-
ing unity is by giving some orderly succession to a
number of objects more or less similar. And this
succession is most interesting when it is connected
with some gradual change in the aspect or character
of the objects. Thus the succession of the pillars of
a cathedral aisle is most interesting when they retire
in perspective, becoming more and more obscure in
distance : so the succession of mountain promontories
one behind another, on the flanks of a valley ; so
the succession of clouds, fading farther and farther
On Colour and Composition 151
towards the horizon ; each promontory and each
cloud being of different shape, yet all evidently fol-
lowing in a calm and appointed order. If there be
no change at all in the shape or size of the objects,
there is no continuity ; there is only repetition —
monotony. It is the change in shape which suggests
the idea of their being individually free, and able to
escape, if they liked, from the law that rules them,
and yet submitting to it. I will leave our chosen
est:
Fig. 33.
illustrative composition for a moment to take up
another, still more expressive of this law. It is one
of Turner's most tender studies, a sketch on Calais
Sands at sunset ; so delicate in the expression of
wave and cloud, that it is of no use for me to try to
reach it with any kind of outline in a woodcut ; but
the rough sketch, Fig. 33., is enough to give an idea
of its arrangement. The aim of the painter has been
to give the intensest expression of repose, together
with the enchanted, lulling, monotonous motion of
cloud and wave. All the clouds are moving- in
152 The Elements of Drawing
innumerable ranks after the sun, meeting- towards
the point in the horizon where he has set ; and the
tidal waves gain in winding currents upon the sand,
with that stealthy haste in which they cross each
other so quietly, at their edges ; just folding one over
another as they meet, like a little piece of ruffled
silk, and leaping up a little as two children kiss and
clap their hands, and then going on again, each in its
silent hurry, drawing pointed arches on the sand as
their thin edges intersect in parting : but all this
would not have been enough expressed without the
line of the old pier-timbers, black with weeds, strained
and bent by the storm waves, and now seeming to
stoop in following one another, like dark ghosts
escaping slowly from the cruelty of the pursuing sea.
I need not, I hope, point out to the reader the
illustration of this law of continuance in the subject
chosen for our general illustration. It was simply
that gradual succession of the retiring arches of the
bridge which induced Turner to paint the subject at
all ; and it was this same principle which led him
always to seize on subjects including long bridges
wherever he could find them ; but especially, observe,
unequal bridges, having the highest arch at one side
rather than at the centre. There is a reason for
this, irrespective of general laws of composition, and
connected with the nature of rivers, which I may
as well stop a minute to tell you about, and let you
rest from the study of composition.
All rivers, small or large, agree in one character,
they like to lean a little on one side : they cannot
bear to have their channels deepest in the middle,
but will always, if they can, have one bank to sun
themselves upon, and another to get cool under; one
shingly shore to play over, where they may be shallow,
and foolish, and child-like, and another steep shore,
under which they can pause, and purify themselves,
and get their strength of waves fully together for due
occasion. Rivers in this way are just like wise men,
On Colour and Composition 153
who keep one side of their life for play, and another
for work ; and can be brilliant, and chattering, and
transparent, when they are at ease, and yet take deep
counsel on the other side when they set themselves
to their main purpose. And rivers are just in this
divided, also, like wicked and good men : the good
rivers have serviceable deep places all along their
banks, that ships can sail in ; but the wicked rivers
go scooping irregularly under their banks until they
get full of strangling eddies, which no boat can row
over without being twisted against the rocks ; and
pools like wells, which no one can get out of but the
water-kelpie that lives at the bottom ; — but, wicked
or good, the rivers all agree in having two kinds of
sides. Now the natural way in which a village stone-
mason therefore throws a bridge over a strong stream
is, of course, to build a great door to let the cat
through, and little doors to let the kittens through ;
a great arch for the great current, to give it room in
flood time, and little arches for the little currents
along the shallow shore. This, even without any
prudential respect for the floods of the great current,
he would do in simple economy of work and stone ;
for the smaller your arches are, the less material you
want on their flanks. Two arches over the same
span of river, supposing the butments are at the
same depth, are cheaper than one, and that by a
great deal ; so that, where the current is shallow,
the village mason makes his arches many and low :
as the water gets deeper, and it becomes troublesome
to build his piers up from the bottom, he throws his
arches wider ; at last he comes to the deep stream,
and, as he cannot build at the bottom of that, he
throws his largest arch over it with a leap, and with
another little one or so gains the opposite shore. Of
course as arches are wider they must be higher, or
they will not stand ; so the roadway must rise as the
arches widen. And thus we have the general type
of bridge, with its highest and widest arch towards
154 The Elements of Drawing
one side, and a train of minor arches running over
the flat shore on the other : usually a steep bank at
the river-side next the large arch ; always, of course,
a flat shore on the side of the small ones : and the
bend of the river assuredly concave towards this flat,
cutting round, with a sweep into the steep bank ; or,
if there is no steep bank, still assuredly cutting into
the shore at the steep end of the bridge.
Now this kind of bridge, sympathising, as it does,
with the spirit of the river, and marking the nature
of the thing it has to deal with and conquer, is the
ideal of a bridge ; and all endeavours to do the
thing in a grand engineer's manner, with a level
roadway and equal arches, are barbarous ; not only
because all monotonous forms are ugly in themselves,
but because the mind perceives at once that there
has been cost uselessly thrown away for the sake
of formality.1
1 The cost of art in getting- a bridge level is always lost, for
you must get up to the height of the central arch at any rate,
and you only can make the whole bridge level by putting the
hill farther back, and pretending to have got rid of it when
you have not, but have only wasted money in building an
unnecessary embankment. Of course, the bridge should not
be difficultly or dangerously steep, but the necessary slope,
whatever it may be, should be in the bridge itself, as far as
the bridge can take it, and not pushed aside into the approach,
as in our Waterloo road ; the only rational excuse for doing
which is that when the slope must be long it is inconvenient
to put on a drag at the top of the bridge, and that any restive-
ness of the horse is more dangerous on the bridge than on
the embankment. To this I answer : first, it is not more
dangerous in reality, though it looks so, for the bridge is
always guarded by an effective parapet, but the embankment
is sure to have no parapet, or only a useless rail ; and secondly,
that it is better to have the slope on the bridge and make the
roadway wide in proportion, so as to be quite safe, because
a little waste of space on the river is no loss, but your wide
embankment at the side loses good ground ; and so my
picturesque bridges are right as well as beautiful, and I hope
to see them built again some day instead of the frightful
straight-backed things which we fancy are fine, and accept
from the pontifical rigidities of the engineering mind.
On Colour and Composition 155
Well, to return to our continuity. We see that
the Turnerian bridge in Fig. 32. is of the absolutely
perfect type, and is still farther interesting by having
its main arch crowned by a watch-tower. But as I
want you to note especially what perhaps was not
the case in the real bridge, but is entirely Turner's
doing, you will find that though the arches diminish
gradually, not one is regularly diminished — they are
all of different shapes and sizes : you cannot see
this clearly in Fig. 32., but in the larger diagram,
Fig. 34. overleaf, you will with ease. This is in-
deed also part of the ideal of a bridge, because the
lateral currents near the shore are of course irregular
in size, and a simple builder would naturally vary
his arches accordingly ; and also, if the bottom was
rocky, build his piers where the rocks came. But it
is not as a part of bridge ideal, but as a necessity of
all noble composition, that this irregularity is intro-
duced by Turner. It at once raises the object thus
treated from the lower or vulgar unity of rigid law
to the greater unity of clouds, and waves, and trees,
and human souls, each different, each obedient, and
each in harmonious service.
4. THE LAW OF CURVATURE
There is, however, another point to be noticed
in this bridge of Turner's. Not only does it slope
away unequally at its sides, but it slopes in a gradual
though very subtle curve. And if you substitute a
straight line for this curve (drawing one with a rule
from the base of the tower on each side to the ends
of the bridge, m Fig. 34., and effacing the curve,)
you will instantly see that the design has suffered
grievously. You may ascertain, by experiment, that
all beautiful objects whatsoever are thus terminated
by delicately curved lines, except where the straight
line is indispensable to their use or stability ; and
On Colour and Composition 157
that when a complete system of straight lines,
throughout the form, is necessary to that stability,
as in crystals, the beauty, if any exists, is in colour
and transparency, not in form. Cut out the shape
of any crystal you like, in white wax or wood, and
put it beside a white lily, and you will feel the force
?*FSfcN*
N
fc
:
S
Fig. 35.
of the curvature in its purity, irrespective of added
colour, or other interfering elements of beauty.
Well, as curves are more beautiful than straight
lines, it is necessary to a good composition that its
continuities of object, mass, or colour should be, if
possible, in curves, rather than straight lines or
angular ones. Perhaps one of the simplest and
prettiest examples of a graceful continuity of this
kind is in the line traced at any moment by the
corks of a net as it is being drawn : nearly every
158 The Elements of Drawing
person is more or less attracted by the beauty of
the dotted line. Now it is almost always possible,
not only to secure such a continuity in the arrange-
ment or boundaries of objects which, like these bridge
arches or the corks of the net, are actually connected
with each other, but — and this is a still more noble
and interesting kind of continuity — among features
which appear at first entirely separate. Thus the
towers of Ehrenbreitstein, on the left, in Fig. 32.,
appear at first independent of each other ; but when
1 give their profile, on a larger scale, Fig. 35., the
reader may easily perceive that there is a subtle
cadence and harmony among them. The reason of
this is, that they are all bounded by one grand curve,
traced by the dotted line ; out of the seven towers,
four precisely touch this curve, the others only falling
back from it here and there to keep the eye from
discovering it too easily.
And it is not only always possible to obtain con-
tinuities of this kind : it is, in drawing large forest
or mountain forms, essential to truth. The towers
of Ehrenbreitstein might or might not in reality fall
into such a curve, but assuredly the basalt rock on
which they stand did ; for all mountain forms not
cloven into absolute precipice, nor covered by straight
slopes of shales, are more or less governed by these
great curves, it being one of the aims of Nature in
all her work to produce them. The reader must
already know this, if he has been able to sketch at
all among mountains ; if not, let him merely draw
for himself, carefully, the outlines of any low hills
accessible to him, where they are tolerably steep, or
of the woods which grow on them. The steeper
shore of the Thames at Maidenhead, or any of the
downs at Brighton or Dover, or, even nearer, about
Croydon (as Addington Hills), are easily accessible
to a Londoner ; and he will soon find not only how
constant, but how graceful the curvature is. Grace-
ful curvature is distinguished from ungraceful by two
On Colour and Composition 159
characters : first, its moderation, that is to say, its
close approach to straightness in some part of its
course 1 ; and, secondly, by its variation, that is to
say, its never remaining equal in degree at different
parts of its course.
This variation is itself twofold in all good curves.
A. There is, first, a steady change through the
whole line, from less to more curvature, or more to
less, so that no part of the line is a segment of a circle,
or can be drawn by compasses in any way whatever.
Thus, in Fig. 36., a is a bad curve, because it is part
Fir. 36.
of a circle, and is therefore monotonous throughout ;
but b is a good curve, because it continually changes
its direction as it proceeds.
The first difference between good and bad drawing
of tree boughs consists in observance of this fact.
Thus, when I put leaves on the v
line b, as in Fig. 37., you can \. \\ (^^|/
immediately feel the springiness "^v^^ly
of character dependent on the '~^Z.^/..y^'
changefulness of the curve. Fig. 37.
You may put leaves on the
other line for yourself, but you will find you cannot
make a right tree-spray of it. For all tree boughs,
large or small, as well as all noble natural lines
whatsoever, agree in this character ; and it is a
point of primal necessity that your eye should
1 I cannot waste space here by reprinting what I have said
in other books : but the reader ought, if possible, to refer to
the notices of this part of our subject in Modern Painters, vol.
iv. chap. xvii. ; and Stones of Venice, vol. iii. chap. i. § 8.
160 The Elements of Drawing
always seize and your hand trace it. Here are
two more portions of good curves, with leaves put
on them at the extremities instead of the flanks,
Fig- 38. ; and two showing the arrangement of
Fig. 38.
Fig. 39.
Fig. 40.
masses of foliage seen a little farther off, Fig. 39.,
which you may in like manner amuse yourself by
turning into segments of circles, — you will see with
what result. I hope however you have beside you,
by this time, many good studies of tree boughs
carefully made, in which you may study variations
On Colour and Composition 161
of curvature in their most complicated and lovely
forms.1
B. Not only does every good curve vary in general
tendency, but it is modulated, as it proceeds, by
myriads of subordinate curves. Thus the outlines
of a tree trunk are never as at a, Fig. 40., but as at
b. So also in waves, clouds, and all other nobly
formed masses. Thus another essential difference
between good and bad drawing, or good and bad
sculpture, depends on the quantity and refinement
of minor curvatures carried, by good work, into the
great lines. Strictly speaking, however, this is not
variation in large curves, but composition of large
curves out of small ones ; it is an increase in the
quantity of the beautiful element, but not a change in
its nature.
5. THE LAW OF RADIATION
We have hitherto been concerned only with the
binding of our various objects into beautiful lines or
processions. The next point we have to consider
is, how we may unite these lines or processions
themselves, so as to make groups of them.
Now, there are two kinds of harmonies of lines.
One in which, moving more or less side by side, they
variously, but evidently with consent, retire from or
approach each other, intersect or oppose each other :
currents of melody in music, for different voices, thus
approach and cross, fall and rise, in harmony ; so
the waves of the sea, as they approach the shore,
flow into one another or cross, but with a great unity
through all ; and so various lines of composition
often flow harmoniously through and across each
1 If you happen to be reading at this part of the book, with-
out having gone through any previous practice, turn back to
the sketch of the ramification of stone pine, Fig. 4. p. 18., and
examine the curves of its boughs one by one, tr\ ing them by
the conditions here stated under the heads A and B.
162 The Elements of Drawing
other in a picture. But the most simple and perfect
connexion of lines is by radiation ; that is, by their
all springing- from one point, or closing' towards it :
and this harmony is often, in Nature almost always,
united with the other ; as the boughs of trees, though
they intersect and play amongst each other irregularly,
indicate by their general tendency their origin from
one root. An essential part of the beauty of all
vegetable form is in this radiation : it is seen most
simply in a single flower or leaf, as in a convolvulus
bell, or chestnut leaf; but more beautifully in the
complicated arrangements of the large boughs and
sprays. For a leaf is only a flat piece of radiation ;
but the tree throws its branches on all sides, and
even in every profile view of it, which presents a
radiation more or less correspondent to that of its
leaves, it is more beautiful, because varied by the
freedom of the separate branches. I believe it has
been ascertained that, in all trees, the angle at which,
in their leaves, the lateral ribs are set on their central
rib is approximately the same at which the branches
leave the great stem ; and thus each section of the
tree would present a kind of
magnified view of its own leaf,
were it not for the interfering
force of gravity on the masses of
foliage. This force in proportion
to their age, and the lateral lever-
age upon them, bears them down-
wards at the extremities, so that,
as before noticed, the lower the
bough grows on the stem, the
more it droops (Fig. 17. p. 71.);
besides this, nearly all beautiful
trees have a tendency to divide
into two or more principal masses,
which give a prettier and more complicated symmetry
than if one stem ran all the way up the centre. Fig.
41. may thus be considered the simplest type of tree
On Colour and Composition 163
radiation, as opposed to leaf radiation. In this
figure, however, all secondary ramification is un-
represented, for the sake of simplicity ; but
if we take one half of such a tree, and
merely give two secondary branches to each
main branch (as represented in the general
branch structure shown at b, Fig. 18. p. 72.),
we shall have the form, Fig. 42. This I con-
sider the perfect general type of tree struc-
ture ; and it is curiously connected with
certain forms of Greek, Byzantine, and
Gothic ornamentation^ into the discussion pIG .2
of which, however, we must not enter here.
It will be observed, that both in Figures 41. and
42. all the branches so spring from the main stem
as very nearly to suggest their united radiation
,* JL
Fig. 43.
from the root r. This is by no means
universally the case ; but if the branches
do not bend towards a point in the root,
they at least converge to some point or 9 \|
other. In the examples in Fig. 43., the I f
mathematical centre of curvature, a, is I h
thus, in one case, on the ground at some Fig. 44.
distance from the root, and in the other,
near the top of the tree. Half, only, of each tree is
given, for the sake of clearness : Fig. 44. gives both
sides of another example, in which the origins of
164 The Elements of Drawing
curvature are below the root. As the positions of
such points may be varied without end, and as the
arrangement of the lines is also farther complicated
by the fact of the boughs springing for the most part
in a spiral order round the tree, and at proportionate
distances, the systems of curvature which regulate
the form of vegetation are quite infinite. Infinite is
a word easily said, and easily written, and people do
not always mean it when they say it; in this case I do
mean it : the number of systems is incalculable, and
even to furnish anything like a representative number
of types, I should have to give several hundreds of
figures such as Fig. 44.1
Thus far, however, we have only been speaking
of the great relations of stem and branches. The
forms of the branches themselves are regulated by
still more subtle laws, for they occupy an inter-
mediate position between the form of the tree and of
the leaf. The leaf has a flat ramification ; the tree
a completely rounded one ; the bough is neither
rounded nor flat, but has a structure exactly balanced
between the two, in a half-flattened, half-rounded
flake, closely resembling in shape one of the thick
leaves of an artichoke or the flake of a fir cone ; by
combination forming the solid mass of the tree, as
the leaves compose the artichoke head. I have
before pointed out to you the general resemblance
of these branch flakes to an extended hand ; but
they may be more accurately represented by the ribs
of a boat. If you can imagine a very broad-headed
and flattened boat applied by its keel to the end of a
main branch2, as in Fig. 45., the lines which its ribs
1 The reader, I hope, observes always that every line in
these figures is itself one of varying- curvature, and cannot be
drawn by compasses.
2 I hope the reader understands that these woodcuts are
merely facsimiles of the sketches I make at the side of my
paper to illustrate my meaning as I write — often sadly
scrawled if I want to get on to something else. This one is
really a little too careless ; but it would take more time and
Fig. 45.
On Colour and Composition 165
will take, and the general contour of it, as seen in
different directions, from above and below ; and from
one side and another, will give you the closest ap-
proximation to the
perspectives and
foreshortenings of a
well-grown branch-
flake. Fig. 25.
above, page 95., is
an unharmed and
unrestrained shoot
of healthy young oak ; and, if you compare it with
Fig. 45., you will understand at once the action of
the lines of leafage ; the boat only failing as a type
in that its ribs are too nearly parallel to each other
at the sides, while the bough sends all its ramifica-
tion well forwards, rounding to the head, that it
may accomplish its part
in the outer form of the
whole tree, yet always
securing the compliance
with the great universal
law that the branches
nearest the root bend
most back ; and, of
course, throwing some
always back as well as
forwards ; the appearance of reversed action being
much increased, and rendered more striking and
beautiful, by perspective. Fig. 25. shows the per-
spective of such a bough as it is seen from below ;
Fig. 46. gives rudely the look it would have from
above.
You may suppose, if you have not already dis-
covered, what subtleties of perspective and light and
shade are involved in the drawing of these branch-
trouble to make a proper drawing of so odd a boat than
the matter is worth. It will answer the purpose well enough as
it is.
Fig. 46.
1 66 The Elements of Drawing
flakes, as you see them in different directions and
actions ; now raised, now depressed ; touched on the
edges by the wind, or lifted up and bent back so as
to show all the white under surfaces of the leaves
shivering in light, as the bottom of a boat rises white
with spray at the surge-crest ; or drooping in quiet-
ness towards the dew of the grass beneath them in
windless mornings, or bowed down under oppressive
grace of deep-charged snow. Snow time, by the
way, is one of the best for practice in the placing of
tree masses ; but you will only be able to understand
them thoroughly by beginning with a single bough
and a few leaves placed tolerably even, as in Fig. 38.
p. 160. First one with three leaves, a central and
two lateral ones, as at a ; then with five, as at b, and
so on ; directing your whole attention to the expres-
sion, both by contour and light and shade, of the boat-
like arrangements, which, in your earlier studies,
will have been a good deal confused, partly owing to
your inexperience, and partly to the depth of shade,
or absolute blackness of mass required in those
studies.
One thing more remains to be noted, and I will
let you out of the wood. You see that in every
generally representative figure I have surrounded
the radiating branches with a dotted line : such
lines do indeed terminate every vegetable form ; and
you see that they are themselves beautiful curves,
which, according to their flow, and the width or
narrowness of the spaces they enclose, characterise
the species of tree or leaf, and express its free or
formal action, its grace of youth or weight of age.
So that, throughout all the freedom of her wildest
foliage, Nature is resolved on expressing an encom-
passing limit ; and marking a unity in the whole
tree, caused not only by the rising of its branches
from a common root, but by their joining in one
work, and being bound by a commen law. And
having ascertained this, let us turn back for a moment
On Colour and Composition 167
to a point in leaf structure which, I doubt not, you
must already have observed in your earlier studies,
but which it is well to state here, as connected with
the unity of the branches in the great trees. You
must have noticed, I should think, that whenever a
leaf is compound, — that is to say, divided into other
leaflets which in any way repeat or imitate the form
of the whole leaf, — those leaflets are not symmetrical,
B
Fig. 47.
as the whole leaf is, but always smaller on the side
towards the point of the great leaf, so as to express
their subordination to it, and show, even when they
are pulled off, that they are not small independent
leaves, but members of one large leaf.
Fig. 47., which is a block-plan of a leaf of colum-
bine, without its minor divisions on the edges, will
illustrate the principle clearly. It is composed of a
central large mass, A, and two lateral ones, of
which the one on the right only is lettered, B.
Each of these masses is again composed of three
1 68 The Elements of Drawing
others, a central and two lateral ones ; but observe,
the minor one, a of A, is balanced equally by its
opposite ; but the minor b i of B is larger than its
opposite b 2. Again, each of these minor masses is
divided into three ; but while the central mass,
A of A, is symmetrically divided, the B of B is
unsymmetrical, its largest side-lobe being lowest.
Again in b 2, the lobe c 1 (its lowest lobe in relation
to b) is larger than c 2 ; and so also in b 1. So that
universally one lobe of a lateral leaf is always
larger than the other, and the smaller lobe is that
which is nearer the central mass ; the lower leaf,
as it were by courtesy, subduing some of its own
dignity or power, in the immediate presence of the
greater or captain leaf ; and always expressing, there-
fore, its own subordination and secondary character.
This law is carried out even in single leaves. As far
as I know, the upper half, towards the point of the
spray, is always the smaller ; and a slightly different
curve, more convex at the springing, is used for the
lower side, giving an exquisite variety to the form of
the whole leaf ; so that one of the chief elements in
the beauty of every subordinate leaf throughout the
tree, is made to depend on its confession of its own
lowliness and subjection.
And now, if we bring together in one view the
principles we have ascertained in trees, we shall find
they may be summed under four great laws ; and
that all perfect1 vegetable form is appointed to
express these four laws in noble balance of authority.
1. Support from one living root.
2. Radiation, or tendency of force from some one
1 Imperfect vegetable form I consider that which is in its
nature dependent, as in runners and climbers ; or which is
susceptible of continual injury without materially losing- the
power of giving pleasure by its aspect, as in the case of the
smaller grasses. I have not, of course, space here to explain
these minor distinctions, but the laws above stated apply to all
the more important trees and shrubs likely to be familiar to
the student.
On Colour and Composition 169
given point, either in the root, or in some stated
connexion with it.
3. Liberty of each bough to seek its own liveli-
hood and happiness according to its needs, by irre-
gularities of action both in its play and its work,
either stretching out to get its required nourishment
from light and rain, by finding some sufficient
breathing-place among the other branches, or
knotting and gathering itself up to get strength for
any load which its fruitful blossoms may lay upon it,
and for any stress of its storm-tossed luxuriance of
leaves ; or playing hither and thither as the fitful
sunshine may tempt its young shoots, in their
undecided states of mind about their future life.
4. Imperative requirement of each bough to stop
within certain limits, expressive of its kindly fel-
lowship and fraternity with the boughs in its neigh-
bourhood ; and to work with them according to its
power, magnitude, and state of health, to bring out
the general perfectness of the great curve, and
circumferent stateliness of the whole tree.
I think I may leave you, unhelped, to work out
the moral analogies of these laws ; you may, per-
haps, however, be a little puzzled to see the meaning
of the second one. It typically expresses that
healthy human actions should spring radiantly (like
rays) from some single heart motive ; the most beauti-
ful systems of action taking place when this motive
lies at the root of the whole life, and the action is
clearly seen to proceed from it ; while also many
beautiful secondary systems of action taking place
from motives not so deep or central, but in some
beautiful subordinate connexion with the central or
life motive.
The other laws, if you think over them, you will
find equally significative ; and as you draw trees
more and more in their various states of health and
hardship, you will be every day more struck by the
beauty of the types they present of the truths most
170 The Elements of Drawing
essential for mankind to know1; and you will see
what this vegetation of the earth, which is necessary
to our life, first, as purifying the air for us and then
as food, and just as necessary to our joy in all places
of the earth,— what these trees and leaves, I say, are
meant to teach us as we contemplate them, and read
or hear their lovely language, written or spoken for
us, not in frightful black letters, nor in dull sentences,
but in fair green and shadowy shapes of waving
words, and blossomed, brightness of odoriferous wit,
and sweet whispers of unintrusive wisdom, and
playful morality.
Well, I am sorry myself to leave the wood, what-
ever my reader may be ; but leave it we must, or we
shall compose no more pictures to-day.
This law of radiation, then, enforcing unison of
action in arising from, or proceeding to, some given
point, is perhaps, of all principles of composition, the
most influential in producing the beauty of groups of
form. Other laws make them forcible or interesting,
but this generally is chief in rendering them beauti-
ful. In the arrangement of masses in pictures, it is
constantly obeyed by the great composers ; but, like
the law of principality, with careful concealment of
1 There is a very tender lesson of this kind in the shadows
of leaves upon the ground ; shadows which are the most
likely of all to attract attention, by their pretty play and
change. If you examine them, you will find that the shadows
do not take the forms of the leaves, but that, through each
interstice, the light falls, at a little distance, in the form of
a round or oval spot ; that is to say, it produces the image of
the sun itself, cast either vertically or obliquely, in circle or
ellipse according to the slope of the ground. Of course the
sun's rays produce the same effect, when they fall through any
small aperture : but the openings between leaves are the only
ones likely to show it to an ordinary observer, or to attract his
attention to it by its frequency, and lead him to think what this
type may signify respecting the greater Sun ; and how it may
show us that, even when the opening through which the earth
receives light is too small to let us see the Sun himself, the ray
of light that enters, if it comes straight from Him, will still
bear with it His image.
/
On Colour and Composition 171
its imperativeness, the point to which the lines of
main curvature are directed being very often far
away out of the picture. Sometimes, however, a
system of curves will be employed definitely to
exalt, by their concurrence, the value of some
leading object, and then the law becomes traceable
enough.
In the instance before us, the principal object
being, as we have seen, the tower on the bridge,
Turner has determined that his system of curvature
should have its origin in the top of this tower. The
diagram Fig. 34. p. 156., compared with Fig. 32.
p. 146, will show how this is done. One curve joins
the two towers, and is continued by the back of the
figure sitting on the bank into the piece of bent
timber. This is a limiting curve of great importance,
and Turner has drawn a considerable part of it with
the edge of the timber very carefully, and then led
the eye up to the sitting girl by some white spots
and indications of a ledge in the bank ; then the
passage to the tops of the towers cannot be missed.
The next curve is begun and drawn carefully for
half an inch of its course by the rudder ; it is then
taken up by the basket and the heads of the figures,
and leads accurately to the tower angle. The gun-
wales of both the boats begin the next two curves,
which meet in the same point ; and all are centralised
by the long reflection which continues the vertical
lines.
Subordinated to this first system of curves there is
another, begun by the small crossing bar of wood
inserted in the angle behind the rudder ; continued
by the bottom of the bank on which the figure sits,
interrupted forcibly beyond it1, but taken up again
1 In the smaller figure (32.), it will be seen that this inter-
ruption is caused by a cart coming down to the water's edge ;
and this object is serviceable as beginning another system of
curves leading out of the picture on the right, but so obscurely
drawn as not to be easily represented in outline. As it is
172 The Elements of Drawing
by the water-line leading- to the bridge foot, and
passing on in delicate shadows under the arches, not
easily shown in so rude a diagram, towards the other
extremity of the bridge. This is a most important
curve, indicating that the force and sweep of the river
have indeed been in old times under the large arches ;
while the antiquity of the bridge is told us by the
long tongue of land, either of carted rubbish, or
washed down by some minor stream, which has
interrupted this curve, and is now used as a landing-
place for the boats, and for embarkation of merchan-
dise, of which some bales and bundles are laid in
a heap, immediately beneath the great tower. A
common composer would have put these bales to one
side or the other, but Turner knows better ; he uses
them as a foundation for his tower, adding to its
importance precisely as the sculptured base adorns a
pillar ; and he farther increases the aspect of its
height by throwing the reflection of it far down in
the nearer water. All the great composers have this
same feeling about sustaining their vertical masses :
you will constantly find Prout using the artifice most
dexterously (see, for instance, the figure with the
wheelbarrow under the great tower, in the sketch of
St. Nicolas, at Prague, and the white group of
figures under the tower in the sketch of Augs-
burg :) ; and Veronese, Titian, and Tintoret continu-
ally put their principal figures at bases of pillars.
Turner found out their secret very early, the most
prominent instance of his composition on this prin-
ciple being the drawing of Turin from the Superga,
in Hakewell's Italy. I chose Fig. 20., already given
to illustrate foliage drawing, chiefly because, being
another instance of precisely the same arrangement,
it will serve to convince you of its being intentional.
unnecessary to the explanation of our point here, it has been
omitted in the larger diagram, the direction of the curve it
begins being indicated by the dashes only.
1 Both in the Sketches in Flanders and Germany.
On Colour and Composition 173
There, the vertical, formed by the larger tree, is con-
tinued by the figure of the farmer, and that of one
of the smaller trees by his stick. The lines of the
interior mass of the bushes radiate, under the law of
radiation, from a point behind the farmer's head ;
but their outline curves are carried on and repeated,
under the law of continuity, by the curves of the dog
and boy — by the way, note the remarkable instance
in these of the use of darkest lines towards the light ;
— all more or less guiding the eye up to the right, in
order to bring it finally to the Keep of Windsor,
which is the central object of the picture, as the
bridge tower is in the Coblentz. The wall on which
the boy climbs answers the purpose of contrasting,
both in direction and character, with these greater
curves ; thus corresponding as nearly as possible to
the minor tongue of land in the Coblentz. This,
however, introduces us to another law, which we
must consider separately.
6. THE LAW OF CONTRAST
Of course the character of everything is best
manifested by Contrast. Rest can only be enjoyed
after labour ; sound, to be heard clearly, must rise
out of silence ; light is exhibited by darkness, dark-
ness by light ; and so on in all things. Now in art
every colour has an opponent colour, which, if
brought near it, will relieve it more completely than
any other ; so, also, every form and line may be
made more striking to the eye by an opponent form
or line near them ; a curved line is set off by a
straight one, a massy form by a slight one, and
so on ; and in all good work nearly double the
value, which any given colour or form would have
uncombined, is given to each by contrast.1
1 If you happen to meet with the plate of Durer's represent-
ing a coat of arms with a skull in the shield, note the value
174 The Elements of Drawing
In this case again, however, a too manifest use of
the artifice vulgarises a picture. Great painters do
not commonly, or very visibly, admit violent contrast.
They introduce it by stealth, and with intermediate
links of tender change ; allowing, indeed, the op-
position to tell upon the mind as a surprise, but not
as a shock.1
Thus in the rock of Ehrenbreitstein, Fig. 35., the
main current of the lines being downwards, in a
convex swell, they are suddenly stopped at the lowest
tower by a counter series of beds, directed nearly
straight across them. This adverse force sets off
and relieves the great curvature, but it is reconciled
to it by a series of radiating lines below, which at
first sympathise with the oblique bar, then gradually
get steeper, till they meet and join in the fall of the
great curve. No passage, however intentionally
monotonous, is ever introduced by a good artist
without some slight counter current of this kind ; so
much, indeed, do the great composers feel the
necessity of it, that they will even do things purposely
ill or unsatisfactorily, in order to give greater value to
their well-doing in other places. In a skilful poet's
versification the so-called bad or inferior lines are not
inferior because he could not do them better, but
because he feels that if all were equally weighty,
there would be no real sense of weight anywhere ;
if all were equally melodious, the melody itself
would be fatiguing ; and he purposely introduces the
labouring or discordant verse, that the full ring may
be felt in his main sentence, and the finished sweet-
given to the concave curves and sharp point of the helmet by
the convex leafage carried round it in front ; and the use ot
the blank white part of the shield in opposing the rich folds of
the dress.
1 Turner hardly ever, as far as I remember, allows a strong
light to oppose a full dark, without some intervening tint.
His suns never set behind dark mountains without a film of
cloud above the mountain's edge.
/
On Colour and Composition 175
ness in his chosen rhythm.1 And continually in paint-
ing, inferior artists destroy their work by giving too
much of all that they think is good, while the great
painter gives just enough to be enjoyed, and passes
to an opposite kind of enjoyment, or to an inferior
state of enjoyment : he gives a passage of rich,
involved, exquisitely wrought colour, then passes
away into slight, and pale, and simple colour ; he
Fig. 48.
paints for a minute or two with intense decision, then
suddenly becomes, as the spectator thinks, slovenly ;
but he is not slovenly : you could not have taken any
more decision from him just then ; you have had as
much as is good for you : he paints over a great
1 "A prudent chief not always must display
His powers in equal ranks and fair arra'y.
But with the occasion and the place comply,
Conceal his force ; nay, seem sometimes t'o fly.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream."
Essay on Criticism,
176 The Elements of Drawing
space of his picture forms of the most rounded and
melting tenderness, and suddenly, as you think by a
freak, gives you a bit as jagged and sharp as a
leafless blackthorn. Perhaps the most exquisite
piece of subtle contrast in the world of painting is
the arrow point, laid sharp against the white side and
among the flowing hair of Correggio's Antiope. It is
quite singular how very little contrast will sometimes
serve to make an entire group of forms interesting
which would otherwise have been valueless. There is
a good deal of picturesque material, for instance, in
this top of an old tower, Fig. 48., tiles and stones
and sloping roof not disagreeably mingled ; but all
would have been unsatisfactory if there had not
happened to be that iron ring on the inner wall,
which by its vigorous black circular line precisely
opposes all the square and angular characters of the
battlements and roof. Draw the tower without the
ring, and see what a difference it will make.
One of the most important applications of the law
of contrast is in association with the law of continuity,
causing an unexpected but gentle break in a con-
tinuous series. This artifice is perpetual in music,
and perpetual also in good illumination ; the way in
which little surprises of change are prepared in any
current borders, or chains of ornamental design, being
one of the most subtle characteristics of the work
of the good periods. We take, for instance, a bar
of ornament between two written columns of an
early 14th century MS., and at the first glance we
suppose it to be quite monotonous all the way up,
composed of a winding tendril, with alternately a
blue leaf and a scarlet bud. Presently, however, we
see that, in order to observe the law of principality,
there is one large scarlet leaf instead of a bud, nearly
half-way up, which forms a centre to the whole rod ;
and when we begin to examine the order of the
leaves, we find it varied carefully. Let A stand for
scarlet bud, b for blue leaf, c for two blue leaves on
/
On Colour and Composition 177
one stalk, s for a stalk without a leaf, and r for the
large red leaf. Then, counting from the ground, the
order begins as follows :
b, b, A ; b, s, b, A ; b, b, a ; b, b, a ; and we think
we shall have two Ps and an A all the way, when
suddenly it becomes b, a ; b, r ; b, a ; b, a ; b, a ;
and we think we are going to have b, A continued ;
but no : here it becomes b, s ; b, s ; />, a ; b, s ; b, s ;
c, s ; b, s ; b, s ; and we think we are surely going to
have b, s continued, but behold it runs away to the
end with a quick b, b, A ; b, b, b, b I1 Very often,
however, the designer is satisfied with one surprise,
but I never saw a good illuminated border without
one at least ; and no series of any kind is ever
introduced by a great composer in a painting without
a snap somewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's
drawing of Rome with the large balustrade for a
foreground in the Hakewell's Italy series : the single
baluster struck out of the line, and showing the street
below through the gap, simply makes the whole com-
position right, when otherwise, it would have been
stiff and absurd.
If you look back to Fig. 48. you will see, in the
arrangement of the battlements, a simple instance of
the use of such variation. The whole top of the
tower, though actually three sides of a square, strikes
the eye as a continuous series of five masses. The
first two, on the left, somewhat square and blank ;
then the next two higher and richer, the tiles being
seen on their slopes. Both these groups being
couples, there is enough monotony in the series to
make a change pleasant ; and the last battlement,
therefore, is a little higher than the first two, — a little
lower than the second two, — and different in shape
from either. Hide it with your finger, and see how
ugly and formal the other four battlements look.
There are in this figure several other simple
1 I am describing from an MS., circa 1300, of Gregory's
DecretaJia, in my own possession.
N
178 The Elements of Drawing
illustrations of the laws we have been tracing. Thus
the whole shape of the walls' mass being- square, it
is well, still for the sake of contrast, to oppose it not
only by the element of curvature, in the ring, and
lines of the roof below, but by that of sharpness ;
hence the pleasure which the eye takes in the pro-
jecting point of the roof. Also, because the walls
are thick and sturdy, it is well to contrast their
strength with weakness ; therefore we enjoy the
evident decrepitude of this roof as it sinks between
them. The whole mass being nearly white, we want
a contrasting shadow somewhere ; and get it, under
our piece of decrepitude. This shade, with the tiles
of the wall below, forms another pointed mass,
necessary to the first by the law of repetition. Hide
this inferior angle with your finger, and see how
ugly the other looks. A sense of the law of
symmetry, though you might hardly suppose it, has
some share in the feeling with which you look at the
battlements ; there is a certain pleasure in the
opposed slopes of their top, on one side down to the
left, on the other to the right. Still less would you
think the law of radiation had anything to do with
the matter : but if you take the extreme point of the
black shadow on the left for a centre, and follow first
the low curve of the eaves of the wall, it will lead
you, if you continue it, to the point of the tower
cornice ; follow the second curve, the top of the tiles
of the wall, and it will strike the top of the right-hand
battlement ; then draw a curve from the highest point
of the angle battlement on the left, through the
points of the roof and its dark echo ; and you will
see how the whole top of the tower radiates from this
lowest dark point. There are other curvatures
crossing these main ones, to keep them from being
too conspicuous. Follow the curve of the upper roof,
it will take you to the top of the highest battlement ;
and the stones indicated at the right-hand side of the
tower are more extended at the bottom, in order to
/
On Colour and Composition 179
get some less direct expression of sympathy, such as
irregular stones may be capable of, with the general
flow of the curves from left to right.
You may not readily believe, at first, that all
these laws are indeed involved in so trifling a piece
of composition. But, as you study longer, you will
discover that these laws, and many more, are obeyed
by the powerful composers in every touch : that
literally, there is never a dash of their pencil which
is not carrying out appointed purposes of this kind
in twenty various ways at once ; and that there is
as much difference, in way of intention and authority,
between one of the great composers ruling his colours,
and a common painter confused by them, as there is
between a general directing the march of an army,
and an old lady carried off her feet by a mob.
7. THE LAW OF INTERCHANGE
Closely connected with the law of contrast is a
law which enforces the unity of opposite things, by
giving to each a portion of the character of the
other. If, for instance, you divide a shield into two
masses of colour, all the way down — suppose blue
and white, and put a bar, or figure of an animal,
partly on one division, partly on the other, you will
find it pleasant to the eye if you make the part of
the animal blue which comes upon the white half,
and white which comes upon the blue half. This is
done in heraldry, partly for the sake of perfect in-
telligibility, but yet more for the sake of delight in
interchange of colour, since, in all ornamentation
whatever, the practice is continual, in the ages of
good design.
Sometimes this alternation is merely a reversal ol
contrasts ; as that, after red has been for some time
on one side, and blue on the other, red shall pass to
blue's side and blue to red's. This kind of alterna-
180 The Elements of Drawing
tion takes place simply in four-quartered shields ; in
more subtle pieces of treatment, a little bit only of
each colour is carried into the other, and they are
as it were dovetailed together. One of the most
curious facts which will impress itself upon you,
when you have drawn some time carefully from
Nature in light and shade, is the appearance of
intentional artifice with which contrasts of this alter-
nate kind are produced by her ; the artistry with
which she will darken a tree trunk as long as it
comes against light sky, and throw sunlight on it
precisely at the spot where it comes against a dark
hill, and similarly treat all her masses of shade and
colour, is so great, that if you only follow her closely,
every one who looks at your drawing with attention
will think that you have been inventing the most
artificially and unnaturally delightful interchanges of
shadow that could possibly be devised by human wit.
You will find this law of interchange insisted upon
at length by Prout in his Lessons on Light and
Shade : it seems, of all his principles of composition,
to be the one he is most conscious of; many others
he obeys by instinct, but this he formally accepts
and forcibly declares.
The typical purpose of the law of interchange is,
of course, to teach us how opposite natures may be
helped and strengthened by receiving each, as far as
they can, some impress or reflection, or imparted
power, from the other.
8. THE LAW OF CONSISTENCY
It is to be remembered, in the next place, that
while contrast exhibits the characters of things, it
very often neutralises or paralyses their power. A
number of white things may be shown to be clearly
white by opposition of a black thing, but if we want
the full power of their gathered light, the black
/
On Colour and Composition 181
thing- may be seriously in our way. Thus, while
contrast displays things, it is unity and sympathy
which employ them, concentrating the power of
several into a mass. And, not in art merely, but
in all the affairs of life, the wisdom of man is
continually called upon to reconcile these opposite
methods of exhibiting, or using, the materials in his
power. By change he gives them pleasantness, and
by consistency value ; by change he is refreshed, and
by perseverance strengthened.
Hence many compositions address themselves to
the spectator by aggregate force of colour or line,
more than by contrasts of either ; many noble pictures
are painted almost exclusively in various tones of
red, or grey, or gold, so as to be instantly striking
by their breadth of flush, or glow, or tender cold-
ness, these qualities being exhibited only by slight
and subtle use of contrast. Similarly as to form ;
some compositions associate massive and rugged
forms, others slight and graceful ones, each with few
interruptions by lines of contrary character. And,
in general, such compositions possess higher sub-
limity than those which are more mingled in their
elements. They tell a special tale, and summon a
definite state of feeling, while the grand compositions
merely please the eye.
This unit)' or breadth of character generally
attaches most to the works of the greatest men ;
their separate pictures have all separate aims. We
have not, in each, grey colour set against sombre,
and sharp forms against soft, and loud passages
against low : but we have the bright picture, with its
delicate sadness ; the sombre picture, with its single
ray of relief; the stern picture, with only one tender
group of lines ; the soft and calm picture, with only
one rock angle at its flank ; and so on. Hence the
variety of their work, as well as its impressiveness.
The principal bearing of this law, however, is on
the separate masses or divisions of a picture : the
1 82 The Elements of Drawing
character of the whole composition may be broken
or various, if we please, but there must certainly be
a tendency to consistent assemblage in its divisions.
As an army may act on several points at once, but
can only act effectually by having somewhere formed
and regular masses, and not wholly by skirmishers ;
so a picture may be various in its tendencies, but
must be somewhere united and coherent in its masses.
Good composers are always associating their colours
in great groups ; binding their forms together by
encompassing lines, and securing, by various dex-
terities of expedient, what they themselves call
"breadth:" that is to say, a large gathering of
each kind of thing into one place ; light being
gathered to light, darkness to darkness, and colour
to colour. If, however, this be done by introducing
false lightsor falsecolours, it is absurd and monstrous;
the skill of a painter consists in obtaining breadth
by rational arrangement of his objects, not by forced
or wanton treatment of them. It is an easy matter
to paint one thing all white, and another all black
or brown ; but not an easy matter to assemble all
the circumstances which will naturally produce white
in one place, and brown in another. Generally
speaking, however, breadth will result in sufficient
degree from fidelity of study : Nature is always
broad ; and if you paint her colours in true relations,
you will paint them in majestic masses. If you find
your work look broken and scattered, it is, in all
probability, not only ill composed, but untrue.
The opposite quality to breadth, that of division
or scattering of light and colour, has a certain
contrasting charm, and is occasionally introduced
with exquisite effect by good composers.1 Still, it
1 One of the most wonderful compositions of Tintoret in
Venice, is little more than a field of subdued crimson, spotted
with flakes of scattered gold. The upper clouds in the most
beautiful skies owe great part of their power to infinitude ot
division ; order being- marked through this division.
On Colour and Composition 183
is never the mere scattering, but the order discern-
ible through this scattering, which is the real source
of pleasure ; not the mere multitude, but the con-
stellation of multitude. The broken lights in the
work of a good painter wander like flocks upon the
hills, not unshepherded ; speaking of life and peace :
the broken lights of a bad painter fall like hailstones,
and are capable only of mischief, leaving it to be
wished they were also of dissolution.
9. THE LAW OF HARMONY
This last law is not, strictly speaking, so much one
of composition as of truth, but it must guide com-
position, and is properly, therefore, to be stated in
this place.
Good drawing is, as we have seen, an abstract of
natural facts ; you cannot represent all that you
would, but must continually be falling short, whether
you will or no, of the force, or quantity, of Nature.
Now, suppose that your means and time do not
admit of your giving the depth of colour in the
scene, and that you are obliged to paint it paler.
If you paint all the colours proportionately paler,
as if an equal quantity of tint had been washed
away from each of them, you still obtain a harmo-
nious, though not an equally forcible statement of
natural fact. But if you take away the colours
unequally, and leave some tints nearly as deep as
they are in Nature, while others are much subdued,
you have no longer a true statement. You cannot
say to the observer, " Fancy all those colours a little
deeper, and you will have the actual fact." However
he adds in imagination, or takes away, something is
sure to be still wrong. The picture is out of harmony.
It will happen, however, much more frequently,
that you have to darken the whole system of colours,
than to make them paler. You remember, in your
first studies of colour from Nature, you were to
184 The Elements of Drawing
leave the passages of light which were too bright to
be imitated, as white paper. But, in completing the
picture, it becomes necessary to put colour into
them ; and then the other colours must be made
darker, in some fixed relation to them. If you
deepen all proportionately, though the whole scene
is darker than reality, it is only as if you were
looking at the reality in a lower light : but if,
while you darken some of the tints, you leave others
undarkened, the picture is out of harmony, and will
not give the impression of truth.
It is not, indeed, possible to deepen all the colours
so much as to relieve the lights in their natural de-
gree ; you would merely sink most of your colours,
if you tried to do so, into a broad mass of blackness :
but it is quite possible to lower them harmoniously,
and yet more in some parts of the picture than in
others, so as to allow you to show the light you want
in a visible relief. In well-harmonised pictures this
is done by gradually deepening the tone of the picture
towards the lighter parts of it, without materially
lowering it in the very dark parts ; the tendency in
such pictures being, of course, to include large
masses of middle tints. But the principal point to
be observed in doing this, is to deepen the individual
tints without dirtying or obscuring them. It is easy
to lower the tone of the picture by washing it over
with grey or brown ; and easy to see the effect of the
landscape, when its colours are thus universally pol-
luted with black, by using the black convex mirror,
one of the most pestilent inventions for falsifying
nature and degrading art which ever was put into
an artist's hand.1 For the thing required is not to
1 I fully believe that the strange grey gloom, accompanied
by considerable power of effect, which prevails in modern
French art, mu t be owing to the use of this mischievous
instrument ; the French landscape always gives n e the idea
of Nature seen carelessly in the dark mirror, and painted
coarsely, but scientifically, through the veil of its perversion.
On Colour and Composition 185
darken pale yellow by mixing grey with it, but to
deepen the pure yellow ; not to darken crimson by
mixing black with it, but by making it deeper and
richer crimson : and thus the required effect could
only be seen in Nature, if you had pieces of glass of
the colour of every object in your landscape, and of
every minor hue that made up those colours, and
then could see the real landscape through this deep
gorgeousness of the varied glass. You cannot do
this with glass, but you can do it for yourself
as you work ; that is to say, you can put deep
blue for pale blue, deep gold for pale gold, and
so on, in the proportion you need ; and then you
may paint as forcibly as you choose, but your work
will still be in the manner of Titian, not of Cara-
vaggio or Spagnoletto, or any other of the black
slaves of painting.1
Supposing those scales of colour, which I told you
to prepare in order to show you the relations of
colour to grey, were quite accurately made, and
numerous enough, you would have nothing more to
do, in order to obtain a deeper tone in any given
mass of colour, than to substitute for each of its hues
the -hue as many degrees deeper in the scale as yoir
wanted, that is to say, if you wanted to deepen the
whole two degrees, substituting for the yellow No.
5. the yellow No. 7., and for the red No. 9. the red
No. 11., and so on: but the hues of any object in
Nature are far too numerous, and their degrees too
subtle, to admit of so mechanical a process. Still,
you may see the principle of the whole matter clearly
by taking a group of colours out of your scale,
arranging them prettily, and then washing them all
over with grey : that represents the treatment of
Nature by the black mirror. Then arrange the same
group of colours, with the tints five or six degrees
1 Various other parts of this subject are entered into,
especially in their bearing on the ideal of painting, in Modern
Painters, vol. iv. chap. iii.
1 86 The Elements of Drawing
deeper in the scale ; and that will represent the
treatment of Nature by Titian.
You can only, however, feel your way fully to the
right of the thing by working from Nature.
The best subject on which to begin a piece of study
of this kind is a good thick tree trunk, seen against
blue sky with some white clouds in it. Paint the
clouds in true and tenderly gradated white ; then
give the sky a bold full blue, bringing them well
out ; then paint the trunk and leaves grandly dark
against all, but in such glowing dark green and
brown as you see they will bear. Afterwards proceed
to more complicated studies, matching the colours
carefully first by your old method ; then deepening
each colour with its own tint, and being careful,
above all things, to keep truth of equal change
when the colours are connected with each other,
as in dark and light sides of the same object.
Much more aspect and sense of harmony are
gained by the precision with which you observe
the relation of colours in dark sides and light sides,
and the influence of modifying reflections, than
by mere accuracy of added depth in independent
colours.
This harmony of tone, as it is generally called, is
the most important of those which the artist has to
regard. But there are all kinds of harmonies in a
picture, according to its mode of production. There
is even a harmony of touch. If you paint one part of
it very rapidly and forcibly, and another part slowly
and delicately, each division of the picture may be
right separately, but they will not agree together :
the whole will be effectless and valueless, out of
harmony. Similarly, if you paint one part of it by
a yellow light in a warm day, and another by a grey-
light in a cold day, though both may have been
sunlight, and both may be well toned, and have their
relative shadows truly cast, neither will look like
light : they will destroy each other's power, by being
On Colour and Composition 187
out of harmony. These are only broad and definable
instances of discordance ; but there is an extent of
harmony in all good work much too subtle for
definition ; depending on the draughtsman's carry-
ing everything he draws up to just the balancing and
harmonious point, in finish, and colour, and depth of
tone, and intensity of moral feeling, and style of
touch, all considered at once ; and never allowing
himself to lean too emphatically on detached parts,
or exalt one thing at the expense of another, or feel
acutely in one place and coldly in another. If you
have got some of Cruikshank's etchings, you will be
able, I think, to feel the nature of harmonious treat-
ment in a simple kind, by comparing them with any of
Richter's illustrations to the numerous German story-
books lately published at Christmas, with all the Ger-
man stories spoiled. Cruikshank's work is often incom-
plete in characterand poor in incident, but, as drawing,
it is perfect in harmony. The pure and simple effects
of daylight which he gets by his thorough mastery
of treatment in this respect, are quite unrivalled, as
far as I know, by any other work executed with so
few touches. His vignettes to Grimm's German
stories, already recommended, are the most remark-
able in this quality. Richter's illustrations, on the
contrary, are of a very high stamp as respects
understanding of human character, with infinite play-
fulness and tenderness of fancy ; but, as drawings,
they are almost unendurably out of harmony, violent
blacks in one place being continually opposed to
trenchant white in another ; and, as is almost sure
to be the case with bad harmonists, the local colour
hardly felt anywhere. All German work is apt to be
out of harmony, in consequence of its too frequent
conditions of affectation, and its wilful refusals of
fact ; as well as by reason of a feverish kind of
excitement, which dwells violently on particular
points, and makes all the lines of thought in the
picture to stand on end, as it were, like a cat's fur
1 88 The Elements of Drawing
electrified ; while good work is always as quiet as a
couchant leopard, and as strong.
I have now stated to you all the laws of composi-
tion which occur to me as capable of being illustrated
or defined ; but there are multitudes of others which,
in the present state of my knowledge, I cannot define,
and others which I never hope to define ; and these
the most important, and connected with the deepest
powers of the art. Among those which I hope to be
able to explain when I have thought of them more,
are the laws which relate to nobleness and ignoble-
ness ; that ignobleness especially which we com-
monly call "vulgarity," and which, in its essence,
is one of the most curious subjects of inquiry
connected with human feeling. Among those which
I never hope to explain, are chiefly laws of expres-
sion, and others bearing simply on simple matters ;
but, for that very reason, more influential -than any
others. These are, from the first, as inexplicable as
our bodily sensations are ; it being just as impossible,
I think, to explain why one succession of musical
notes1 shall be noble and pathetic, and such as might
have been sung by Casella to Dante, and why another
succession is base and ridiculous, and would be fit
only for the reasonably good ear of Bottom, as to
explain why we like sweetness, and dislike bitterness.
The best part of every great work is always inex-
plicable : it is good because it is good; and innocently
gracious, opening as the green of the earth, or
falling as the dew of heaven.
But though you cannot explain them, you may
always render yourself more and more sensitive to
1 In all the best arrangements of colour, the delight occa-
sioned by their mode of succession is entirely inexplicable, nor
can it be reasoned about ; we like it just as we like an air in
music, but cannot reason any refractory person into liking it,
if they do not : and yet there is distinctly a right and a wrong-
in it, and a good taste and bad taste respecting it, as also in
music.
On Colour and Composition 189
these higher qualities by the discipline which you
generally give to your character, and this especially
with regard to the choice of incidents ; a kind of
composition in some sort easier than the artistical
arrangements of lines and colours, but in every sort
nobler, because addressed to deeper feelings.
For instance, in the " Datur Hora Quieti," the last
vignette to Rogers's Poems, the plough in the fore-
ground has three purposes. The first purpose is to
meet the stream of sunlight on the river, and make
it brighter by opposition ; but any dark object what-
ever would have done this. Its second purpose is,
by its two arms, to repeat the cadence of the group
of the two ships, and thus give a greater expression
of repose ; but two sitting figures would have done
this. Its third and chief, or pathetic, purpose is, as
it lies abandoned in the furrow (the vessels also being
moored, and having their sails down), to be a type
of human labour closed with the close of day. The
parts of it on which the hand leans are brought most
clearly into sight ; and they are the chief dark of the
picture, because the tillage of the ground is required
of man as a punishment ; but they make the soft
light of the setting sun brighter, because rest is
sweetest after toil. These thoughts may never occur
to us as we glance carelessly at the design ; and
yet their undercurrent assuredly affects the feelings,
and increases, as the painter meant it should, the
impression of melancholy, and of peace.
Again, in the " Lancaster Sands," which is one of
the plates I have marked as most desirable for your
possession ; the stream of light which falls from the
setting sun on the advancing tide stands similarly in
need of some force of near object to relieve its bright-
ness. But the incident which Turner has here adopted
is the swoop of an angry seagull at a dog, who yelps
at it, drawing back as the wave rises over his feet,
and the bird shrieks within a foot of his face. Its
unexpected boldness is a type of the anger of its
190 The Elements of Drawing
ocean element, and warns us of the sea's advance
just as surely as the abandoned plough told us of the
ceased labour of the day.
It is not, however, so much in the selection of
single incidents of this kind as in the feeling which
regulates the arrangement of the whole subject that
the mind of a great composer is known. A single
incident may be suggested by a felicitous chance, as
a pretty motto might be for the heading a chapter.
But the great composers so arrange all their designs
that one incident illustrates another, just as one
colour relieves another. Perhaps the " Heysham,"of
the Yorkshire series, which, as to its locality, may be
considered a companion to the last drawing we have
spoken of, the "Lancaster Sands," presents as in-
teresting an example as we could find of Turner's
feeling in this respect. The subject is a simple north-
country village, on the shore of Morecambe Bay; not
in the common sense a picturesque village : there are
no pretty bow-windows, or red roofs, or rocky steps
of entrance to the rustic doors, or quaint gables ;
nothing but a single street of thatched and chiefly
clay-built cottages, ranged in a somewhat monotonous
line, the roofs so green with moss that at first we
hardly discern the houses from the fields and trees.
The village street is closed at the end by a wooden
gate, indicating the little traffic there is on the road
through it, and giving it something the look of a
large farmstead, in which a right of way lies through
the yard. The road which leads to this gate is full
of ruts, and winds down a bad bit of hill between
two broken banks of moor ground, succeeding
immediately to the few enclosures which surround
the village ; they can hardly be called gardens : but
a decayed fragment or two of fencing fill the gaps in
the bank ; and a clothes-line, with some clothes on
it, striped blue and red, and a smock-frock, is stretched
between the trunks of some stunted willows ; a very
small haystack and pigstye being seen at the back of
On Colour and Composition 191
the cottage beyond. An empty, two-wheeled, lum-
bering- cart, drawn by a pair of horses with huge
wooden collars, the driver sitting lazily in the sun,
sideways on the leader, is going slowly home along
the rough road, it being about country dinner-time.
At the end of the village there is a better house, with
three chimneys and a dormer window in its roof, and
the roof is of stone shingle instead of thatch, but very
rough. This house is no doubt the clergyman's :
there is some smoke from one of its chimneys, none
from any other in the village ; this smoke is from the
lowest chimney at the back, evidently that of the
kitchen, and it is rather thick, the fire not having
been long lighted. A few hundred yards from the
clergyman's house, nearer the shore, is the church,
discernible from the cottages only by its low two-
arched belfry, a little neater than one would expect
in such a village; perhaps lately built by the Puseyite
incumbent * : and beyond the church, close to the
sea, are two fragments of a border war-tower,
standing on their circular mound, worn on its brow
deep into edges and furrows by the feet of the village
children. On the bank of moor, which forms the
foreground, are a few cows, the carter's dog barking
at a vixenish one : the milkmaid is feeding another,
a gentle white one, which turns its head to her,
expectant of a handful of fresh hay, which she has
brought for it in her blue apron, fastened up round her
waist ; she stands with her pail on her head, evidently
the village coquette, for she has a neat bodice, and
pretty striped petticoat under the blue apron, and red
stockings. Nearer us, the cowherd, barefooted, stands
on a piece of the limestone rock (for the ground is
1 " Puseyism" was unknown in the days when this drawing
was made ; but the kindly and helpful influences of what may
be called ecclesiastical sentiment, which, in a morbidly exag-
gerated condition, forms one of the principal elements of
" Puseyism," — I use this word regretfully, no other existing
which will serve for it, — had been known and felt in our wild
northern districts long before.
192 The Elements of Drawing
thistly and not pleasurable to bare feet) ; — whether
boy or girl we are not sure : it may be a boy, with
a girl's worn-out bonnet on, or a girl with a pair of
ragged trowsers on ; probably the first, as the old
bonnet is evidently useful to keep the sun out of our
eyes when we are looking for strayed cows among
the moorland hollows, and helps us at present to
watch (holding the bonnet's edge down) the quarrel
of the vixenish cow with the dog, which, leaning on
our long stick, we allow to proceed without any
interference. A little to the right the hay is being
got in, of which the milkmaid has just taken her
apronful to the white cow ; but the hay is very thin,
and cannot well be raked up because of the rocks ;
we must glean it like corn, hence the smallness of
our stack behind the willows ; and a woman is
pressing a bundle of it hard together, kneeling against
the rock's edge, to carry it safely to the hay-cart
without dropping any. Beyond the village is a rocky
hill, deep set with brushwood, a square crag or two
of limestone emerging here and there, with pleasant
turf on their brows, heaved in russet and mossy
mounds against the sky, which, clear and calm, and
as golden as the moss, stretches down behind it
towards the sea. A single cottage just shows its
roof over the edge of the hill, looking seawards :
perhaps one of the village shepherds is a sea captain
now, and may have built it there, that his mother
may first see the sails of his ship whenever it runs
into the bay. Then under the hill, and beyond the
border tower, is the blue sea itself, the waves flow-
ing in over the sand in long curved lines, slowly ;
shadows of cloud, and gleams of shallow water on
white sand alternating — miles away ; but no sail is
visible, not one fisher-boat on the beach, not one
dark speck on the quiet horizon. Beyond all are the
Cumberland mountains, clear in the sun, with rosy
light on all their crags.
I should think the reader cannot but feel the kind
On Colour and Composition 193
of harmony there is in this composition ; the entire
purpose of the painter to give us the impression of
wild, yet gentle, country life, monotonous as the suc-
cession of the noiseless waves, patient and enduring
as the rocks ; but peaceful, and full of health and
quiet hope, and sanctified by, the pure mountain air
and baptismal dew of heaven, falling softly between
days of toil and nights of innocence.
All noble composition of this kind can be reached
only by instinct : you cannot set yourself to arrange
such a subject ; you may see it, and seize it, at all
times, but never laboriously invent it. And your
power of discerning what is best in expression, among
natural subjects, depends wholly on the temper in
which you keep your own mind ; above all, on your
living so much alone as to allow it to become acutely
sensitive in its own stillness. The noisy life of
modern days is wholly incompatible with any true
perception of natural beauty. If you go down into
Cumberland by the railroad, live in some frequented
hotel, and explore the hills with merry companions,
however much you may enjoy your tour or their con-
versation, depend upon it you will never choose so
much as one pictorial subject rightly ; you will not
see into the depth of any. But take knapsack and
stick, walk towards the hills by short day's journeys,
— ten or twelve miles a day — taking a week from
some starting-place sixty or seventy miles away :
sleep at the pretty little wayside inns, or the rough
village ones ; then take the hills as they tempt you,
following glen or shore as your eye glances or your
heart guides, wholly scornful of local fame or fashion,
and of everything which it is the ordinary traveller's
duty to see, or pride to do. Never force yourself to
admire anything when you are not in the humour ;
but never force yourself away from what you feel to
be lovely, in search of anything better : and gradually
the deeper scenes of the natural world will unfold
themselves to you in still increasing fulness of
0
194 The Elements of Drawing
passionate power ; and your difficulty will be no more
to seek or to compose subjects, but only to choose
one from among the multitude of melodious thoughts
with which you will be haunted, thoughts which will
of course be noble or original in proportion to your
own depth of character and general power of mind;
for it is not so much by the consideration you give to
any single drawing, as by the previous discipline of
your powers of thought, that the character of your
composition will be determined. Simplicity of life
will make you sensitive to the refinement and modesty
of scenery, just as inordinate excitement and pomp
of daily life will make you enjoy coarse colours and
affected forms. Habits of patient comparison and
accurate judgment will make your art precious, as
they will make your actions wise ; and every increase
of noble enthusiasm in your living spirit will be
measured by the reflection of its light upon the works
of your hands.
Faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.
APPENDIX
THINGS TO BE STUDIED
The wor«=t danger by far, to which a solitary student is
exposed, is that of liking things that he should not. It is not
so much his difficuties, as his tastes, which he must set himself
to conquer ; and although, under the guidance of a master,
many works of art mav le made instructive, which are only
of partial excel ence (the good and bad of them being duly
distinguished), his safeguard, a^ long as he studies alone, will
be in allowing himself to possess only things, in their way,
so free from faults, that nothing he copies in them can
seriously mislead him, and to contemplate only those works of
art which he knows to be either perfect or noble in their
errors. I will 1 1 ere ore set down in clear order, the names
of the masters whom you may safely admire, and a few of the
books which you may safely possess. In these days of cheap
illustration, the danger is always rather of your possessing
too much than too little. It may admit of some question,
how far the looking at bad art may set off and illustrate the
characters of the good ; but, en the whole, I believe it is
best to live always on quite wholesome food, and that our
taste of it will not be m.'de more acute by feeding, however
temporarily, on ashes. Of course the works of the great
masters can O' ly be serviceab'e to the student after he has
made ionsiderable progres- himself. It only wastes the time
and dulls the feelings of young persons, to drag them
through picture galleries ; at least, unless they themselves
wi-h to look at particular pictures. Generally, young people
only care to enter a picture ^a lery when there is a chance of
getting leave to run a race to the other end of it ; and they
had Wetter do that in the g rden below. If, however, they
have any re 1 enjoyment of pictures, and want to look at this
one or that, the princ pal point is never to disturb them
in looking at what interests them, and never to make them
look at what does not. Nothing is of the least use to young
people (n'-r, by the way, of much use to old ones), but what
interest- tl em ; and therefore, though it is of great importance
to put noth ng b it good art int • their possession, yet when
they are pa-sing through great houses or galleries, they
sho Id be allowed to look precise'y at what pleases hem : if
it is not useiul to them as art, it will be in some other way ;
and the healthiest way in which art can interest them is when
195
196 The Elements of Drawing
they look at it, not as art, but because it represents some-
thing they like in nature. If a boy has had his heart filled
by the life of some great man, and goes up thirstily to a
Vandyck portrait of him, to see what he was like, that is the
wholesomest way in which he can begin the study of portrai-
ture ; if he love mountains, and dwell on a Turner drawing
because he sees in it a likeness to a Yorkshire scar or an
Alpine pass, that is the wholesomest way in which he can
begin the study of landscape ; and if a girl's mind is filled
with dreams of angels and saints, and she pauses before an
Angelico because she thinks it must surely be indeed like
heaven, that is the wholesomest way for her to begin the study
of religious art.
When, however, the student has made some definite pro-
gress, and every picture becomes really a guide t > him, false
or true, in his own work, it is of great importance that he
should never so much as look at bad art ; and then, if the
reader is willing to trust me in the matter, the following
advice will be useful to him. In which, with his permission,
I will quit the indirect and return to the epistolary address,
as being the more convenient.
First, in Galleries of Pictures :
1. You may look, with trust in their being always right,
at Titian, Veronese, Tmtoret, Giorgione, John Behini, and
Velasquez ; the authenticity of the picture being of course
established f<>r you by proper authority.
2. You may look with admiration, admitting, however,
question of right and wrong1, at Van Eyck, Holbein, Perugino,
Frincia, Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, Vandyck,
Rembrandt, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner, and the
modern Pie Raphaelites.1* You had better look at no other
painters than these, for you run a chance, otherwise, of being
led far off the road, or into grievous faults, by some of the
other great ones, as Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Rubens ;
and of being, besides, corrupted in taste by the base ones, as
Murillo, Salvator, Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Teniers, and such
1 I do not mean necessarily to imply inferiority of rank, in
saying that this second class of painters have questionable
qualities. The greatest men have often many faults, and
sometimes their faults are a part of their greatness ; but such
men are not, of course, to be looked upon by the student with
absolute implicitness of faith.
2 Including under this term, John Lewis, and William Hunt
of the Old Water-colour, who, take him all in all, is the best
painter of still life, I believe, that ever existed.
Appendix 197
others. You may look, however, for examples of evil, with
safe universality of reprobation, being sure that everything
you see is bad, at Domenichino, the Caracci, Bronzino, and
the figure pieces of Salvator.
Among those named for study under question, you cannot
look too much at, nor grow too enthusiastically fond of,
Angelico, Correggio, Reynolds, Turner, and the Pre-Raphael-
ites ; but, if you find yourself getting especially fond of any
of the others, leave off looking at them, for you must be
going wrong some way or other. If, for instance, you begin
to like Rembrandt or Leonardo especially, you are losing your
feeling for colour ; if you like Van Eyck or Perugino especially,
you must be getting too fond of rigid detail ; and if you like
Vandyck or Gainsborough especially, you must be too much
attracted by gentlemanly flimsiness.
Secondly, of published, or otherwise multiplied, art, such
as you may be able to get yourself, or to see at private houses
or in shops, the works of the following masters are the most
desirable, after the Turners, Rembrandts, and Durers, which
I have asked you to get first :
I. Samuel Prout.
All his published lithographic sketches are of the greatest
value, wholly unrivalled in power of composition, and in love
and feeling of architectural subject. His somewhat mannered
linear execution, though not to be imitated in your own
sketches from Nature, may be occasionally copied, for
discipline's sake, with great advantage; it will give you a
peculiar steadiness of hand, not quickly attainable in any-
other way ; and there is no fear of your getting into any
faultful mannerism as long as you carry out the different
modes of more delicate study above recommended.
If you are interested in architecture, and wish to make
it your chief study, you should draw much from photo-
graphs of it ; and then from the architecture itself with
the same completion of detail and gradation, only keeping
the shadows of due paleness, in photographs they are
always about four times as dark as they ought to be ;
and treat buildings with as much care and love as artists do
their rock foregrounds, drawing all the m >ss, and weeds, and
stains upon them. But if, without caring to understand
architecture, you merely want the picturesque character of it,
and to be able to sketch it fast, you cannot do better than
take Prout for your exclusive master ; only do not think that
you are copying Prout by drawing straight lines with dots
at the end of them. Get first his " Rhine," and draw the
198 The Elements of Drawing
subjects that have most hills, and least archi lecture in them,
with chalk on smooth paper, till you can lay on his broad flat
tints, and get his gradations of light, which are very wonderful ;
then take up the architectural subjects in the " Rhine," and
draw again and again the groups of figures, &c, in his
"Microcosm," and '• Lessons on Light and Shadow." After
that, proceed to copy the grand subjects in the sketches in
"Flanders and Germany ;" or m " Switzerland and Italy," if
you cannot get the Flanders; but the Switzerland is very far
inferior. Then work from Nature, not trying to Proutise
Nature, by breaking smooth buildings into rough ones, but
only drawing what you see, with Prout's simple method and
firm lines. Don't copy his coloured works. They are good,
but not at all equal to his chalk and pencil drawings, and you
will become a mere imitator, an>l a very feeble imitator, if
you use colour at all in Prout's method. I have not space to
explain why this is so, it would take a long piece of reasoning;
trust me for the statement.
2. John Lewis.
His sketches in Spain, lithographed by himself, are very
valuable. Get them, if you can, and also some engravings
(about eight or ten, I think, altogether) of wild beasts, executed
by his ov\n hand a long time ago ; they are very precious in
everyway. The series of the "Alhambra" is rather slight,
and few of the subjects are l.thographed by himself; still it
is well worth having.
But let no lithographic work come into the house, if you
can help it, nor even look at any, except Prout's, and those
sketches of Lewis's.
3. George Cruikshank.
If you ever happen to meet with the two volumes of
"Grimm's German Stories," which were illustiated by him
long ago, pounce upon them instantly ; the etchings in
them are the finest things, next to Rembrandt's, that, as
far as I know, have been done since etching was invemed.
You cam ot look at them too much, nor copy them too often.
All his works are very valuable, though disagreeable when
they touch on the worst vulgarities of modern life; and often
much spoiled by a curiousb mistaken type of face, divided
so as to give too much to the mouth and e\es and leave too
little for forehead, the eyes be.ng set about two thiids up,
ins eao of at half the height of the head. But his manner of
woik is always right; and his tragic power, though rarely
developed, and warped by habits cf caricature, is, in reality,
as great as his grotesque power.
Appendix 199
There is no fear of his hurting your taste, as long as your
principal work lies among art of so totally different a
character as most of that which I have recommended to
you ; and, you may, therefore, get great good by copying
almost anything of his that may come in your way; except
only his illustrations, lately published, to " Cinderella," and
"Jack and the Bean-stalk," and "Tom Thumb," which are
much over-laboured, and confused in line. You should get
them, but do not copy them.
4. Alfred Rethel.
I only know two publications by him ; one, the " Dance of
Death," with text by Reinick, published in Leipsic, but to be
had now of any Lon ion bookseller for the sum, I believe, of
eighteen pence, and containing six plates full of instructive
character ; the other, of two plates only, " Death the
Aven ,rer,:' and " Death the Friend." These two are far
superior to the " Todtentanz, ' and, if you can get them, will
be enough in themselves to show all that Rethel can teach
you. If you dislike ghastly subjects, get "Death the Friend"
only.
5. Bewick.
The execution of the plumage in Bewick's birds is the
most masterly thing ever yet done in wood-cutting ; it is just
worked as Paul Veronese would have worked in wood, had
he taken to it. His vignettes, though too coarse in execution,
and vulgar in types of form, to be good copies, show, never-
theless, intellectual power of the highest order ; and there
are pieces of sentiment in them, either pathetic or satirical,
wh ch have never since been equalled in illustrations of this
simple kind ; the bitter intensity of the feeling being just
like that which characterises some of the leading Pre-
Raphaelites. Bewick is the Burns of painting.
6. Blake
The " Book of Job," engraved by himself, is of the
highest rank in certain characters of imagination and ex-
pression ; in the mode of obtain, ng certain effects of light it
will also be a very useful example to you. In expressing
conditions of glaring and flickering light, Blake is greater
than Rembrandt.
7. Richter.
I have already told you what to guard against in looking
at his works. I am a little doubtful whether I have done
well in inclu ling them in this catalogue at all; but the
fancier in them are so pretty and numberless, that I must
risk, for their sake, the chance of hurting you a little in.
200 The Elements of Drawing
judgment of style. If you want to make presents of story-
books to children, his are the best you can now get.
8. Rossetti.
An edition of Tennyson, lately published, contains wood-
cuts from drawings by Rossetti and other chief Pre-Raphaelite
masters. They are terribly spoiled in the cutting, and
generally the best part, the expression of feature, entirely
lost1 ; still they are full of instruction, and cannot be studied
too closely. But, observe, respecting these woodcuts, that
if you have been in the habit of looking at much spurious
work, in which sentiment, action, and style are borrowed or
artificial, you will assuredly be offended at first by all genuine
work, which is intense in feeling. Genuine art, which is
merely art, such as Veronese's or Titian's, may not offend
you, though the chances are that you will not care about it :
but genuine works of feeling, such as Maude or Aurora
Leigh in poetry, or the grand Pre-Raphaelite designs in
painting, are sure to offend you ; and if you cease to work
hard, and persist in looking at vicious and false art, they will
continue to offend you. It will be well, therefore, to have
one type of entirely false art, in order to know what to guard
against. Flaxman's outlines to Dante contain, I think,
examples of almost every kind of falsehood and feebleness
which it is possible for a trained artist, not base in thought,
to commit or admit, both in design and execution. Base or
degraded choice of subject, such as you will constantly find
in Teniers and others of the Dutch painters, 1 need not,
I hope, warn you against ; you will simply turn away from it
in disgust : while mere bad or feeble drawing, which makes
mistakes in every direction at once, cannot teach you the
particular sort of educated fallacy in question. But, in these
designs of Flaxman's, you have gentlemanly feeling, and
fair knowledge of anatomy, and firm setting down of lines,
all applied in the foolishest and worst possible way ; you
cannot have a more finished example of learned error,
amiable want of meaning, and bad drawing with a steady
hand.2 Retsch's outlines have more real material in them
1 This is especially the case in the St. Cecily, Rossetti's first
illustration to the " palace of art," which would have been the
best in the book had it been well engraved. The whole work
should be taken up again, and done by line engraving, per-
fectly ; and wholly from Pre-Raphaelite designs, with which no
other modern work can bear the least comparison.
2 The praise I have given incidentally to Flaxman's sculp-
ture in the Seven Lamps, and elsewhere, refers wholly to his
Appendix 201
than Flaxman's, occasionally showing true fancy and power ;
in artistic principle they are nearly as bad, and in taste
worse. All outlines from statuary, as given in works on
classical art, will be very hurtful to you if you in the least
like them ; and nearly all finished line engravings. Some
particular prints I could name which possess instructive
qualities, but it would take too long to distinguish them, and
the best way is to avoid line engravings of figures altogether.
If you happen to be a rich person, possessing quantities of
them, and if you are fond of the large finished prints from
Raphael, Correggio, &c, it is wholly impossible that you can
make any progress in knowledge of real art till you have
sold them all — or burnt them, which would be a greater
benefit to the world. I hope that some day, true and noble
engravings will be made from the few pictures of the great
schools, which the restorations undertaken by the modern
managers of foreign galleries may leave us; but the existing
engravings have nothing whatever in common with the good
in the works they profess to represent, and if you like them,
you like in the originals of them hardly anything but their
studies from Nature, and simple groups in marble, which were
always good and interesting. Still, I have overrated him,
even in this respect ; and it is generally to be remembered
that, in speaking' of artists whose works I cannot be supposed
to have specially studied, the errors I fall into will always be
on the side of praise. For, of course, praise is most likely
be given when the thing praised is above one's knowledge :
and, therefore, as our knowledge increases, such things mav
be found less praiseworthy than we thought. But blame can
only be justly given when the thing blamed is below one's level
of sight; and, practically, 1 never do blame anything until I
have got well past it, and am certain that there is demonstrable
falsehood in it. I believe, therefore, all my blame to be wholly
trustworthy, having never yet had occasion to repent of one
depreciatory word that I have ever written, while I have often
found that, with respect to things I had not time to study
closely, I was led too far by sudden admiration, helped,
perhaps, by peculiar associations, or other deceptive accidents;
and this the more, because I never care to check an expression
of delight, thinking the chances are, that, even if mistaken, it
will do mere good than harm ; but I weigh every word of
blame with scrupulous caution. I have sometimes erased a
strong passage of blame from second editions of my books ;
but this was only when I found it offended the reader without
convincing him, never because I repented of it myself.
202 The Elements of Drawing
Fin;illv, your judgment will be, of course, much affected by
your taste in literature. Indeed, I know many persons who
have the purest taste in literature, and yet false taste in art,
and it is a phenomenon which puzzles me not a little ; but I
have never known any one with false taste in books, and true
ta^te in pictures. It is also of the greatest importance to
you, not only for art's sake, but for all kinds of sake, in these
days of book deluge, to keep out of the salt swamps of
literature, and live on a little rocky island of your own, with
a S| ring and a lake in it, pure and good. I cannot, of course,
suggest the choice of your library to you, everv several mind
needs different books ; but there are some books which we
all need, and assuredly, if you read Homer1, I lato, /Eschylus,
Hero lotus, Dante2, Shakspeare, and Spenser, as much as
you ought, you will not require wide enlargement of shelves
to right and left of them for purposes of perpetual study.
Among modern books, avoid generally magazine and review
literature. Sometimes it may contain a useful abridgement
or a wholesome piece of criticism ; but the chances are ten
to one it will either waste your time or mislead you. If you
warn to understand any subject whatever, read the best book
upon it you can hear of; not a review of the book. If you
don't like the first book you try, seek for another ; but do not
hone ever to understand the subject without pains, by a
reviewer's help. Avoid especially that class of literature
which has a knowing lone ; it is the most poisonous of all.
Every .,0 >d book, or p.ece of book, is full of admiration and
awe ; it may contain firm assertion or stern satire, but it
never sneers coldly, nor asserts haughtily, and it always
leads you to reverence or love something with your whole
htart. It is not always easy to distinguish the satire of the
venomous race of books from the satire of the noble and pure
ones ; but in general you may notice that the cold-blooded
Crustacean and Batrachian books will sneer at sentiment ;
and the warm-blo >ded, human books, at sin. Then, in
general, the more you can restrain your serious reading to
reflective or lyric poetry, history, and natural history, avoiding
1 Chapman's, if not the original.
2 Carey's or Cayley's, if not the original. I do not know
which are the best translations of Plato. Herodotus and
^Eschylus can only be read in the original. It may seem
strange that I name books like these for " beginners : " but all
the greatest books contain food for all ages ; and an intelligent
and rightly bred youth or girl ought to enjoy much, even in
Plato, by the time they are fifteen or sixteen.
Appendix 203
fiction and the drama, the healthier your mind will become.
Of modern poetry keep to Scott, Wordsworth, Keats, Crabbe,
Tennyson, the two Brownings, Lowell, Longfellow, and
Coventry Patmore, whose "Angel in the House" is a most
finished piece of writing, and the sweetest analysis we possess
of quiet modern domestic feeling ; while Mrs. Browning's
"Aurora Leigh" is, as far as I know, the greatest poem
which the century has produced in any language. Cast
Coleridge at once aside, as sickly and useless ; and Shelley,
as shallow and verbose ; Byron, until your taste is fully
formed, and you are able to discern the magnificence in him
from the wrong. Never read bad or common poetry, nor
write any poetry yourself ; there is, perhaps, rather too much
than too little in the world already.
Of reflective prose, read chiefly Bacon, Johnson, and Helps.
Carlyle is hardly to be named as a writer for " beginners,"
because his teaching, though to some of us vitally necessary,
may to others be hurtful. If you understand and like him,
read him ; if he offends you, you are not yet ready for him,
and perhaps may never be so ; at all events, give him up, as
you would sea-bathing if you found it hurt you, till you are
stronger. Of fiction, read Sir Charles Grandison, Scott's
novels, Miss Edge worth's, and, if you are a young lady,
Madame de Genlis', the French Miss Edgeworth ; making
these, I mean, your constant companions. Of course you
must, or will, read other books for amusement once or twice ;
but you will find that these have an element of perpetuity in
them, existing in nothing else of their kind ; while their
peculiar quietness and repose of manner will also be of the
greatest value in teaching you to feel the same characters in
art. Read little at a time, trying to feel interest in little
things, and reading not so much for the sake of the story
as to get acquainted with the pleasant people into whose
company these writers bring you. A common book will
often give you much amusement, but it is only a noble book
which will give you dear friends. Remember, also,
that it is of less importance to you in your earlier
years, that the books you read should be clever, than that
they should be right. I do not mean oppressively or
repulsively instructive ; but that the thoughts they express
should be just, and the feelings they excite generous. It is
not necessary for you to read the wittiest or the most
suggestive books : it is better, in general, to hear what is
already known, and may be simply said. Much of the
literature of the present day, though good to be read by
204 The Elements of Drawing
persons of ripe age, has a tendency to agitate rather than
confirm, and leaves its readers too frequently in a helpless or
hopeless indignation, the worst possible state into which the
mind of youth can be thrown. It may, indeed, become
necessary for you, as you advance in life, to set your hand to
things that need to be altered in the world, or apply your
heart chiefly to what must be pitied in it, or condemned ;
but, for a young person, the safest temper is one of reverence,
and the safest place one of obscurity. Certainly at present,
and perhaps through all your life, your teachers are wisest
when they make you content in quiet virtue, and that
literature and art are best for you which point out, in com-
mon life and familiar things, the objects for hopeful labour,
and for humble love.
THE
ELEMENTS OF PERSPECTIVE
ARRANGED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS
AND INTENDED TO BE READ IN CONNEXION WITH THE
FIRST THREE BOOKS OF EUCLID
PREFACE
FOR some time back I have felt the want, among Students
of Drawing, of a written code of accurate Perspecti' e Law ;
the modes of construaion in common use bein^ various,
and, for some problems, insufficient. It would have been
desirable to draw up such a code in popular language so
as to do away with the mo-t repulsive difficulties of the
subject: but finding this popularization would be impossible,
without elaborate figures and long explanations, such a- 1
had no leisure to prepare, I have arranged the nece-sary
rules in a short mathematical lo'm, which any sch oiboy
may read through in a few days, att r he has mastered the
first three and the sixth books of Euclid.
Some awk»ard compromises have been admitted between
the first-attempted popular explanat on, and the severer
arrangement, involving irregular lettering and redundant
phraseology ; but I cannot tor the present do m re, and
leave the book therefore to its tri,d, hoping that, if it be
found by masters of schools to answer its purpose, I may
hereafter bring it into better form.1
An account of practical methods, sufficient for gereral
purposes of sketching, might indeed have be.~n set down
in much less space : but if the student reads the following
pages carefully, he will not only hnd himself able, on occa-
sion, to solve perspective problems of a complexity greater
than the ordinary rules will reach, but obtain a clue to many
important laws of pictorial effect, no les^ than of out ine.
The subject thus examined beo-mes, at least to my mind,
very curious and interesting ; but, for stu ents who are
unable or unwilling to take it up in this abstract form, I
1 Some irregularities of arrangement have been admitted
merely for the sake of convenient reference ; the eighth
problem, for instance, ought to have been given as a case
of the seventh, but is separately enunciated on account of
its importance.
Several constructions, which ought to have been given as
problems, are on the contrary given as corollaries, in order
to keep the more directly connected problems in elo-er se-
quence ; thus the construction of rectangles and pohfons in
vertical planes would appear by the Table of Contents to have
been omitted, being given in the corollary to Problem IX.
207
208 The Elements of Perspective
believe good help will be soon furnished, in a series of
illustrations of practical perspective now in preparation by
Mr. Le Vengeur. I have not seen this essay in an advanced
state, but the illustrations shown to me were very clear and
good ; and, as the author has devoted much thought to
their arrangement, 1 hope that his work will be precisely
what is wanted by the general learner.
Students wishing to pursue the subject into its more
extended branches will find, I believe, Cloquet's treatise
the best hitherto published.1
1 Nouveau Traits El&nentaire de Perspective. Bachelier
1823.
INTRODUCTION
When you begin to read this book, sit down very
near the window, and shut the window. I hope the
view out of it is pretty; but, whatever the view may be,
we shall find enough in it for an illustration of the first
principles of perspective (or, literally, of "looking
through ").
Every pane of your window may be considered, if
you choose, as a glass picture ; and what you see
through it, as painted on its surface.
And if, holding your head still, you extend your
hand to the glass, you may, with a brush full of
any thick colour, trace, roughly, the lines of the
landscape on the glass.
But, to do this, you must hold your head very still.
Not only you must not move it sideways, nor up and
down, but it must not even move backwards or
forwards ; for, if you move your head forwards, you
will see more of the landscape through the pane ;
and, if you move it backwards, you will see less : or
considering the pane of glass as a picture, when you
hold your head near it, the objects are painted small,
and a great many of them go into a little space ;.
but, when you hold your head some distance back,
the objects are painted larger upon the pane, and
fewer of them go into the field of it.
But, besides holding your head still, you must,,
when you try to trace the picture on the glass, shut
one of your eyes. If you do not, the point of the
brush appears double ; and, on farther experiment,
you will observe that each of your eyes sees the
object in a different place on the glass, so that the
tracing which is true to the sight of the right eye is
a couple of inches (or more, according to your
distance from the pane,) to the left of that which is
true to the sight of the left.
209 p
210 The Elements of Perspective
Thus, it is only possible to draw what you see
through the window rightly on the surface of the
glass, by fixing one eye at a given point, and neither
moving it to the right nor left, nor up nor down, nor
backwards nor forwards. Every picture drawn in true
perspective may be considered as an upright piece of
glass1, on which the objects seen through it have
been thus drawn. Perspective can, therefore, only
be quite right, by being calculated for one fixed
position of the eye of the observer ; nor will it ever
appear decepnvely right unless seen precisely from the
point it is calculated for. Custom, however, enables
us to feel the Tightness of the work on using both
our eyes, and to be satisfied with it, even when we
stand at some distance from the point it is designed for.
Supposing that, instead of a window, an unbroken
plate of crystal extended itself to the right and left
of you, and high in front, and that you had a brush
as long as you wanted (a mile long, suppose), and
could paint with such a brush, then the clouds high
up, nearly over your head, and the landscape far
away to the right and left, might be traced, and
painted, on this enormous crystal field.2 But if the
field were so vast (suppose a mile high and a mile
wide), certainly, after the picture was done, you
would not stand as near to it, to see it, as you are
now sitting near to your window. In order to trace
the upper clouds through your great glass, you would
have had to stretch your neck quite back, and nobody
likes to bend their neck back to see the top of a picture.
So you would walk a long way back to see the great
picture — a quarter of a mile, perhaps, — and then all
the perspective would be wrong, and would look
quite distorted, and you would discover that you
1 It" the glass were not upright, but sloping, the objects might
still be drawn through it, but their perspective would then
be different. Perspective, as commonly taught, is always
calculated for a vertical plane of picture.
2 Supposing it to have no thickness ; otherwise the images
would be distorted by refraction.
Introduction 211
ought to have painted it from the greater distance,
if you meant to look at it from that distance.
Thus, the distance at which you intend the observer
to stand from a picture, and for which you calculate
the perspective, ouijht to regulate to a certain decree
the size of the picture. If you place the point of
observation near the canvass, you should not make
the picture very large : vice versa, if you place the
point of observation far from the canvass, you should
not make it very small ; the fixing, therefore, of this
point of observation determines, as a matter of con-
venience, within certain limits, the size of your
picture. But it does not determine this size by any
perspective law ; and it is a mistake made by many
writers on perspective, to connect some of their rules
definitely with the size of the picture. For, suppose
that you had what you now see through your
window painted actually upon its surface, it would
be quite optional to cut out any piece you chose,
with the piece of the landscape that was painted on
it. You might have only half a pane, with a single
tree ; or a whole pane, with two trees and a cottage ;
or two panes, with the whole farmyard and pond ;
or four panes, with farmyard, pond, and foreground.
And any of these pieces, if the landscape upon them
were, as a scene, pleasantly composed, would be
agreeable pictures, though of quite different sizes ;
and yet they would be all calculated for the same
distance of observation.
In the following treatise, therefore, I keep the size
of the picture entirely undetermined. 1 consider the
field of canvass as wholly unlimited, and on that
condition determine the perspective laws. After we
know how to apply those laws without limitation,
we shall see what limitations of the size of the
picture their results may render advisable.
But although the size of the picture is thus indepen-
dent 01 the observer's distance, the size of the object
represented in the picture is not. On the contrary,
212 The Elements of Perspective
that size is fixed by absolute mathematical law ; that
is to say, supposing- you have to draw a tower a
hundred feet high, and a quarter of a mile distant
from you, the height which you ought to give that
tower on your paper depends, with mathematical
precision, on the distance at which you intend your
paper to be placed. So, also, do all the rules for
drawing the form of the tower, whatever it may be.
Hence, the first thing to be done in beginning a
drawing is to fix, at your choice, this distance of
observation, or the distance at which you mean to
stand from your paper. After that is determined, all
is determined, except only the ultimate size of your
picture, which you may make greater, or less, not by
altering the size of the things represented, but by
taking in more, or fewer of them. So, then, before
proceeding to apply any practical perspective rule,
we must always have our distance of observation
marked, and the most convenient way of marking it
is the following.
PLACING OF THE SIGHT-POINT, SIGHT-LINE, STATION-
POINT, AND STATION-LINE.
Bn — r=zr ,c
Fig. i.
Introduction 213
I. The Sight-point. — Let a b c d, Fig-, i., be your
sheet of paper, the larger the better, though perhaps
we may cut out of it at last only a small piece for
our picture, such as the dotted circle nopq. This
circle is not intended to limit either the size or shape
of our picture : you may ultimately have it round or
oval, horizontal or upright, small or large, as you
choose. I only dot the line to give you an idea of
whereabouts you will probably like to have it ; and,
as the operations of perspective are more conveni-
ently performed upon paper underneath the picture
than above it, I put this conjectural circle at the top
of the paper, about the middle of it, leaving plenty of
paper on both sides and at the bottom. Now, as
an observer generally stands near the middle of a
picture to look at it, we had better at first, and for
simplicity's sake, fix the point of observation opposite
the middle of our conjectural picture. So take the
point s, the centre of the circle nopq ; — or, which
will be simpler for you in your own work, take the
point s at random near the top of your paper, and
strike the circle nopq round it, any size you like.
Then the point s is to represent the point opposite
which you wish the observer of your picture to place
his eve, in looking at it. Call this point the " Sight-
Point."
II. The Sight-line. — Through the Sight-point, s,
draw a horizontal line, G H, right across your paper
from side to side, and call this line the " Sight-Line."
This line is of great practical use, representing
the level of the eye of the observer all through the
picture. You will find hereafter that if there is a
horizon to be represented in your picture, as of
distant sea or plain, this line defines it.
III. The Station-Line. — From s let fall a per-
pendicular line, s R, to the bottom of the paper, and
call this line the " Station-Line."
214 The Elements of Perspective
This represents the line on which the observer
stands, at a greater or less distance from the picture ;
and it ought to be imag'ned as drawn right out from
the paper at the point s. Hold your paper upright
in front of you, and hold your pencil horizontally,
with its point against the point s, as if you wanted
to run it through the paper there, and the pencil
will represent the direction in which the line s R
ought to be drawn. But as all the measurements
which we have to set upon this line, and operations
which we have to perform with it, are just the same
when it is drawn on the paper itself, below s, as
they would be if it were represented by a wire in
the position of the levelled pencil, and as they are
much more easily performed when it is drawn on
the paper, it is always in practice, so drawn.
IV. The Station-Point.— On this line, mark the
distance s T at your pleasure, for the distance at
which you wish your picture to be seen, and call
the point T the "Station-Point."
In practice, it is generally advisable to make the
distance s T about as great as the diameter of your
intended picture ; and it should, for the most part,
be more rather than less ; but, as I have just stated,
this is quite arbitrary. However, in this figure, as
an approximation to a generally advisable distance,
I make the distance s T equal to the diameter of the
circle nopjj. Now, having fixed this distance, s T,
all the dimensions of the objects in our picture are
fixed likewise, and for this reason : —
Let the upright line A b, Fig. 2., represent a pane
of glass placed where our picture is to be placed ;
but seen at the side of it, edgeways ; let s be the
Sight-point ; s T the Station-line, which, in this
figure, observe, is in its true position, drawn out
from the paper, not down upon it ; and T the
Station-point.
Suppose the Station-line s T to be continued, or
Introduction
215
in mathematical language " produced," through s,
far beyond the pane of glass, and let P Q be a tower
or other upright object situated on or above this line.
Now the apparent height of the tower p Q is
measured by the angle Q T p, between the rays of
light which come from the top and bottom of it to
the eye of the observer. But the actual height of
the image of the tower on the pane of glass a b,
Fig. 2.
between us and it, is the distance p' q', between the
points where the rays traverse the glass.
Evidently, the farther from the point T we place
the glass, making s T longer, the larger will be the
image ; and the nearer we place it to T, the smaller
the image, and that in a fixed ratio. Let the dis-
tance D T be the direct distance from the Station-
point to the foot of the object. Then, if we place
the glass a b at one third of that whole distance,
p' Q will be one third of the real height of the
object ; if we place the glass at two thirds of the
distance, as at E f, p" q" (the height of the image at
that point) will be two thirds the height x of the
1 I !-ay "height" instead of " magnitude," for a reason
stated in Appendix I., to which you will soon be referred.
Read on here at present.
216 The Elements of Perspective
object, and so on. Therefore the mathematical law
is that p' o/ will be to p Q as s T to d T. I put this
ratio clearly by itself that you may remember it :
p Q : p q
D T
or in words
p dash Q dash is to p q as s t to d t
In which formula, recollect that p' q' is the height
of the appearance of the object on the picture ; p Q
the height of the object
itself; s the Sight-point ;
T the Station-point ; D a
point at the direct distance
of the object ; though the
object is seldom placed
actually on the line T S
produced, and may be far
to the right or left of it,
the formula is still the
same.
For let s, Fig. 3., be the
Sight-point, and A B the
glass — here seen looking
down on its ufper edge, not
sideways; — then if the
tower (represented now,
as on a map, by the dark
square), instead of being
at D on the line s t produced, be at E, to the right (or
left) of the spectator, still the apparent height of the
tower on A b will be as s' t to e t, which is the
same ratio as that of s T to D T.
Now in many perspective problems, the position
of an object is more conveniently expressed by the
two measurements D T and D E, than by the single
oblique measurement E T.
I shall call D T the "direct distance" of the object
at E, and D E its "lateral distance." It is rather
Fig. 3.
Introduction 217
a license to call d t its " direct" distance, for e t is
the more direct of the two ; but there is no other
term which would not cause confusion.
Lastly, in order to complete our knowledge of
the position of an object, the vertical height of some
point in it, above or below the eye, must be given ;
that is to say, either d p or d q in Fig. 2. * : this I
shall call the "vertical distance " of the point given.
In all perspective problems these three distances,
and the dimensions of the object, must be stated,
otherwise the problem is imperfectly given. It
ought not to be required of us merely to draw a
room or a church in perspective ; but to draw this
room from this corner, and that church on that spot,
in perspective. For want of knowing how to base
their drawings on the measurement and place of the
object, I have known practised students represent
a parish church, certainly in true perspective, but
with a nave about two miles and a hall long.
It is true that in drawing landscapes from nature
the sizes and distances of the objects cannot be
accurately known. When, however, we know how
to draw them rightly, if their size were given, we
have only to assume a rational approximation to their
size, and the resulting drawing will be true enough
for all intents and purposes. It does not in the least
matter that we represent a distant cottage as eighteen
feet long, when it is in reality only seventeen ; but it
matters much that we do not represent it as eighty
feet long, as we easily might if we had not been
accustomed to draw from measurement. Therefore,
in all the following problems the measurement of the
object is given.
The student must observe, however, that in order
to bring the diagrams into convenient compass, the
1 P and Q being points indicative of the place of the tower's
base and top. In this figure both are above the sight-l;ne ; if
the tower were below the spectator both would be below it,
and therefore measured below D.
218 The Elements of Perspective
measurements assumed are generally very different
from any likely to occur in practice. Thus, in Fig. 3.,
the distance d s would be probably in practice half a
mile or a mile, and the distance t s, from the eye of
the observer to the paper, only two or three feet.
The mathematical law is however precisely the same,
vv hatever the proportions ; and I use such proportions
as are best calculated to make the diagram clear.
Now, therefore, the conditions ot a perspective
problem are the following :
The Sight-line g h given, Fig. 1. ;
The Sight-point S given ;
The Station-point T given ; and
The three distances of the object1, direct, lateral,
and vertical, with its dimensions, given.
The size of the picture, conjecturally limited by the
dotted circle, is to be determined aftei wards at our
pleasure. On these conditions I proceed at once to
construction.
1 More accurately, "the three distances of any point, either
in the object itself, or indicative of its distance."
PROBLEM I
TO FIX THE POSITION OF A GIVEN' POINT 1
Let p, Fig. 4., be the given point.
Let its direct distance be D T ; its lateral distance
to the left, d c ; and vertical distance beneath the eye
of the observer, c p.
Fig. 4.
[Let g h be the Sight-line, s the Sight-point, and T
the Station-point.] 2
1 More accurately, " To fix on the plane of the picture the
apparent position of a point given in actual position." In the
heading's of all the following problems the words " on the plane
of the picture" are to be understood after the words "to
draw." The plane of the picture means a surface extended
indefinitely in the direction of the picture.
2 The sentence within brackets will not be repeated in
succeeding statements of problems. It is always to be under-
stood.
219
220 The Elements of Perspective
It is required to fix on the plane of the picture the
position of" the point P.
Arrange the three distances of the object on your
paper, as in Fig. 4.1
Fig. 5.
Join c T, cutting G H in Q.
From Q let fall the vertical line o, p\
1 In order to be able to do this, you must assume the distances
to be small ; as in the case of some object on the table : how-
large distances are to be treated you will see presently ; the
mathematical principle, being- the same for all, is best illustrated
first on a small scale. Suppose, for instance, P to be the corner
of a book on the table, seven inches below the eye, five inches
to the left of it, and a foot and a half in advance of it, and that
you mean to hold your finished drawing- at six inches from the
eye ; then T S will be six inches, t D a foot and a half, D c five
inches, and c P seven.
Problem I 221
Join p T, cutting Q p in p'.
p' is the point required.
If the point P is above the eye of the observer instead
of below it, c p is to be measured upwards from c,
and Q p' drawn upwards from Q. The construction
will be as in Fig. 5.
And if the point p is to the right instead of the left
of the observer, d c is to be measured to the right
instead of the left.
The figures 4. and 5., looked at in a mirror, will
show the construction of each, on that supposition.
Now read very carefully the examples and notes to
this problem in Appendix I. (page 277.). I have put
them in the Appendix in order to keep the sequence
of following problems more clearly traceable here in
the text ; but you must read the first Appendix before
going on.
PROBLEM II
TO DRAW A RIGHT LINE BETWEEN TWO GIVEN POINTS
Let a b, Fig. 6., be the given right line, joining
the given points A and B.
Let the direct, lateral, and vertical distances of the
point A be T D, D c, and c A.
Let the direct, lateral, and vertical distances of
the point b be T d', d c', and c' B
Then, by Problem I., the position of the point A
on the plane of the picture is a.
222
Problem II — Corollary I 223
And similarly, the position of the point B on the
plane of the picture is b.
Join a b.
Then a b is the line required.
COROLLARY I
If the line A B is in a plane parallel to that of the
picture, one end of the line A B must be at the same
c c
•/
D
.A
\ 5-
\c \\?
S
a
iV-3
Fig. 7.
direct distance from the eye oi the observer as the
other.
Theretore, in that case, d t is equal to d' t.
Then the construction will be as in Fig. 7. ; and
224 The Elements of Perspective
the student will find experimentally that a b is now
parallel to A B.1
And that a b is to A B as t s is to t d.
Therefore, to draw any line in a plane parallel to
that of the picture, we have only to fix the position
of one of its extremities, a or b, and then to draw
from a or b a. line parallel to the given line, bearing
the proportion to it that t s bears to T d.
Fig. 8.
COROLLARY II
If the line A B is in a horizontal plane, the vertical
distance of one of its extremities must be the same
as that of the other.
Therefore, in that case, A C equals b c (Fig. 6.).
1 For bv the construction AT: a T :: B T : £ T ; and there-
fore the two triangles A B T, a b T, (having- a common angle
A T B,) are similar.
Problem II — Corollary III 225
And the construction is as in Fig". 8.
In Fig. 8. produce a b to the sight-line, cutting
the sight-line in v ; the point v, thus determined,
is called the Vanishing-Point of the line a b.
Join t v. Then the student will find experimentally
that T v is parallel to A B.1
COROLLARY III
If the line A B produced would pass through some
point beneath or above the station-point, c d is to
d t as c' d' is to d' T ; in which case the point c
coincides with the point /, and the line a b is
vertical.
Therefore every vertical line in a picture is, or
may be, the perspective representation of a hori-
zontal one which, produced, would pass beneath the
feet or above the head of the spectator.2
1 The demonstration is in Appendix II. Article I.
* The reflection in water of any luminous point or isolated
object (such as the sun or moon) is therefore, in perspective,
a vertical line ; since such reflection, if produced, would pass
under the feet of the spectator. Many artists (Claude among
the rest) knowing something of optics, but nothing of per-
spective, have been led occasionally to draw such reflections
towards a point at the centre of the base of the picture.
PROBLEM III
TO FIND THE VANISHING-POINT OF A GIVEN HORIZONTAL
LINE
Fig. 9.
Let A b, Fig. 9., be the given line.
From t, the station-point, draw t v parallel to
A b, cutting the sight-line in v.
v is the Vanishing-point required.1
1 The student will observe, in practice, that, his paper
lying flat on the table, he has only to draw the line T V on its
horizontal surface, parallel to the given horizontal line A B.
In theory, the paper should be vertical, but the station-line
s T horizontal (see its definition above, page 214.); in which
case T V, being drawn parallel to A B, will be horizontal also,
and still cut the sight-line in v.
The construction will be seen to be founded on the second
Corollary of the preceding problem.
It is evident that if any other line, as M N in Fig. 9., parallel
to A B, occurs in the picture, the line T V, drawn from T,
parallel to M N, to find the vanishing-point of m n, will coincide
with the line drawn from T, parallel to A B, to find the
vanishing-point of A B.
Therefore A B and M N will have the same vanishing-point.
226
Problem III — Corollary I 227
COROLLARY I
As, if the point b is first found, v may be deter-
mined by it, so, if the point v is first found, b may
be determined by it. For let A B, Fig. to., be the
Therefore all parallel horizontal lines have the same vanish-
ing-point.
It will be shown hereafter that all parallel inclined lines also
have the same vanishing-point ; the student may here accept
the general conclusion — " All tarallel lines have the same vanish-
ing point. "
It is also evident that if A B is parallel to the plane of the
picture, T V must be drawn parallel to G H, and will therefore
never cut G H. The line A B has in that case no vanishing-
point : it is to be drawn by the construction given in Fig. 7.
It is also evident that if A B is at right angles with the plane
of the picture, T v will coincide w:th T s, and the vanishing-
point of A B will be the sight-point.
228 The Elements of Perspective
given line, constructed upon the paper as in Fig-. 8. ;
and let it be required to draw the line a b without
using the point c\
Find the position of the point A in a. (Problem I.)
Find the vanishing-point of A B in v. (Problem III.)
Join a v.
Join B T, cutting a v in b.
Then a b is the line required.1
COROLLARY II
We have hitherto proceeded on the supposition
that the given line was small enough, and near
Fig. ii.
1 I spare the student the formality of the reductio adabsurduvi,
which would be necessary to prove this.
Problem III — Corollary II 229
enough, to be actually drawn on our paper of its real
size; as in the example given in Appendix I. We
may, however, now deduce a construction available
under all circumstances, whatever may be the distance
and length of the line given.
From Fig. 8. remove, for the sake of clearness,
the lines c' d', b v, and T v ; and, taking the figure
as here in Fig. n., draw from a, the line a R parallel
to A B, cutting B T in r.
Then a r is to A b as a t is to A T.
— — as c t is to c T.
— — as t s is to T D.
That is to say, a r is the sight-magnitude of a b.1
1 For definition of Sight-Magnitude, see Appendix I. It ought
to have been read before the student comes to this problem ;
but I refer to it in case it has not.
230 The Elements of Perspective
Therefore, when the position of the point A is fixed
in a, as in Fig. 12., and a v is drawn to the vanishing-
point ; if we draw a line a r from a, parallel to A b,
and make a r equal to the sight-magnitude of A B,
and then join r t, the line R T will cut a v in b.
So that, in order to determine the length of a b, we
need not draw the long and distant line A B, but only
a R parallel to it, and of its sight-magnitude ; which
is a great gain, for the line A B may be two miles
long, and the line a r perhaps only two inches.
COROLLARY III
In Fig. 12., altering its proportions a little for the
sake of clearness, and putting it as here in Fig. 13.,
draw a horizontal line a r' and make a r' equal to a R.
M S V
\ R
y\b^^
/7
\ r'
\
/
/
/
T
Fig. 13.
Through the points r' and b draw r' m, cutting the
sight-line in M. Join T v. Now the reader will find
experimentally that v M is equal to v t.1
1 The demonstration is in Appendix II. Article II. p. 303.
Problem III — Corollary IV 231
Hence it follows that, if from the vanishing-point
v we lay off on the sight-line a distance, v m, equal
to v T ; then draw through a a horizontal line a r',
make a r' equal to the sight-magnitude of A B, and
join r' m ; the line r' m will cut a v in b. And this is
in practice generally the most convenient way of
obtaining the length of a b.
COROLLARY IV
Removing from the preceding figure the unneces-
sary lines, and retaining only r' m and a v, as in Fig.
14., produce the line a r' to the other side of tf, and
make a x equal to a r'.
M V N
C a R'
Fig. 14.
Join x b, and produce x b to cut the line of sight in n.
Then as x r' is parallel to m n, and a r' is equal to
a x, v N must, by similar triangles, be equal to v M
(equal to v T in Fig. 13.).
Therefore, on whichever side of v we measure the
distance v t, so as to obtain either the point M, or
the point n, if we measure the sight-magnitude a r'
or a x on the opposite side of the line a v, the line
joining r' m or x n will equally cut a v in b.
The points m and n are called the " Dividing-
Points" of the original line a b (Fig. 12.), and we
resume the results of these corollaries in the following
three problems.
PROBLEM IV
TO FIND THE DIVIDING-POINTS OF A GIVEN HORIZONTAL
LINE
Let the horizontal line a b (Fig. 15.) be given in
position and magnitude. It is required to find its
dividing-points.
Find the vanishing-point v of the line A B.
With centre v and distance v T, describe circle
cutting the sight-line in M and N.
Then M and n are the dividing-points required.
In general, only one dividing-point is needed for
use with any vanishing-point, namely, the one nearest
s (in this case the point m). But its opposite N, or
both, may be needed under certain circumstances.
232
PROBLEM V
TO DRAW A HORIZONTAL LINE, GIVEN IN POSITION AND
MAGNITUDE, BY MEANS OF ITS SIGHT-MAGNITUDE
AND DIVIDING-POINTS
Let a b (Fig. 16.) be the given line.
Find the position of the point A in a.
Fig. 16.
Find the vanishing-point v, and most convenient
dividing-point M, of the line A B.
Join a v.
Through a draw a horizontal line a b' and make
a b' equal to the sight-magnitude of A B. Join b' M,
cutting a v in f>.
Then a b is the line required.
COROLLARY 1
Supposing it were now required to draw a line A C
(Fig. 17.) twice as long as a b, it is evident that the
233
234 The Elements of Perspective
sight-magnitude a J must be twice as long as the
sight-magnitude a b' ; we have, therefore, merely to
continue the horizontal line a b\ make b' d equal to
a b', join c m, cutting a v in c, and a c will be the line
required. Similarly, if we have to draw a line a d,
three times the length of A B, a d1 must be three
Fig. 17.
times the length of a b', and, joining d! M, a d will be
the line required.
The student will observe that the nearer the por-
tions cut off, be, c d, &c, approach the point v, the
smaller they become ; and, whatever lengths may
be added to the line A D, and successively cut off
from a v, the line a v will never be cut off entirely,
but the portions cut off will become infinitely small,
and apparently " vanish " as they approach the point
v; hence this point is called the "vanishing" point.
Problem V — Corollary II 235
COROLLARY II
It is evident that if the line a d had been given
originally, and we had been required to draw it, and
divide it into three equal parts, we should have had
only to divide its sight-magnitude, a d, into the
three equal parts, a b'f b' c ', and c d ', and then,
drawing to m from b' and c ', the line a d would have
been divided as required in b and c. And supposing
the original line A d be divided irregularly into any
number of parts, if the line a d be divided into a
similar number in the same proportions (by the
construction given in Appendix I.), and, from these
points of division, lines are drawn to M, they will
divide the line a d in true perspective into a similar
number of proportionate parts.
The horizontal line drawn through a, on which
the sight-magnitudes are measured, is called the
" Measuring-line."
And the line a d, when properly divided in b and
c, or any other required points, is said to be divided
"IN perspective ratio " to the divisions of the
original line A d.
If the line a v is above the sight-line instead of
beneath it, the measuring-line is to be drawn above
also: and the lines b' M, c M, &c, drawn down to
the dividing-point. Turn Fig. 17. upside down, and
it will show the construction.
PROBLEM VI
TO DRAW ANY TRIANGLE, GIVEN IN POSITION AND
MAGNITUDE, IN A HORIZONTAL PLANE
Let abc (Fig-. 18.) be the triangle.
As it is given in position and magnitude, one of
its sides, at least, must be given in position and
Fig. i 8.
magnitude, and the directions of the two other
sides.
Let a b be the side given in position and magni-
tude.
Then A B is a horizontal line, in a given position,
and of a given length.
Draw the line A B. (Problem V.)
Let a b be the line so drawn.
236
Problem VI 237
Find v and v', the vanishing-points respectively
of the lines a c and b c. (Problem III.)
From a draw a v, and from b, draw b V, cutting
each other in c.
Then a b c is the triangle required.
If A C is the line originally given, a c is the line
which must be first drawn, and the line V b must be
drawn from v' to c and produced to cut a b in b.
Similarly, if b c is given, v c must be drawn to c and
produced, and a b from its vanishing-point to b, and
produced to cut a c in a.
PROBLEM VII
TO DRAW ANY RECTILINEAR QUADRILATERAL FIGURE,
GIVEN IN POSITION AND MAGNITUDE, IN A HORI-
ZONTAL PLANE
Let a b c d (Fig. iy.) be the given figure.
Join any two of its op-
posite angles by the line
B c.
Draw first the triangle
abc. (Problem VI.)
And then, from the base
b c, the two lines B D, CD,
to their vanishing-points,
which will complete the
figure. It is unnecessary
to give a diagram of
the construction, which is
merely that of Fig. 18. duplicated ; another triangle
being drawn on the line a c or b c.
COROLLARY
It is evident that by this application of Problem
VI. any given rectilinear figure whatever in a
horizontal plane may be drawn, since any such
figure may be divided into a number of triangles,
and the triangles then drawn in succession.
More convenient methods may, however, be gener-
ally found, according to the form of the figure
required by the use of succeeding problems ; and
for the quadrilateral figure which occurs most fre-
quently in practice, namely, the square, the following
construction is more convenient than that used in
the present problem.
238
PROBLEM VIII
TO DRAW A SQUARE, GIVEN IN POSITION AND
MAGNITUDE, IN A HORIZONTAL PLANE
Let a b c d, Fig. 20., be the square.
As it is given in position and magnitude, the
position and magnitude of all its sides are given.
M
i
; n
V
^•s. ^^-^~£^
\A^
^s*'
4
V
Fig. 20.
Fix the position of the point a in a.
Find v, the vanishing-point of a b ; and m, the
dividing-point of A B, nearest s.
Find v', the vanishing-point of A c ; and n, the
dividing-point of a c, nearest s.
Draw the measuring-line through a, and make
a b\ a c, each equal to the sight-magnitude of A B.
(For since a b c d is a square, A c is equal to a b.)
239
240 The Elements of Perspective
Draw a V and J N, cutting each other in c.
Draw a v, and b' M, cutting each other in b.
Then a c, a b, are the two nearest sides of the
square.
Now, clearing- the figure of superfluous lines, we
have a b, a c, drawn in position, as in Fig. 21.
And because A b c d is a square, c D (Fig. 20.) is
parallel to A B.
V V
..T
Fig. 21.
And all parallel lines have the same vanishing-
point. (Note to Problem III.)
Therefore, v is the vanishing-point of c D.
Similarly, v' is the vanishing-point of B D.
Therefore, from b and c (Fig. 21.) draw b v', c v,
cutting each other in d.
Then a b c d is the square required.
COROLLARY I
It is obvious that any rectangle in a horizontal
plane may be drawn by this problem, merely making
a b', on the measuring-line, Fig. 20., equal to the
sight-magnitude of one of its sides, and a <! the
sight-magnitude of the other.
Problem VIII — Corollary II 241
COROLLARY II
22., be any square drawn in
the diagonals a d and b c,
d
Let abed, Fig.
perspective. Draw
cutting each other
in c. Then c is
the centre of the
square. Through c
c, draw e f to the
vanishing-point of
a b, and g h to the
vanishing-point of
ac, and these lines
will bisect the
sides of the square, so that a g is the perspective
representation of half the side a b ; a e is half ac\
c h is half c d ; and b f is half b d.
Fig. 22.
COROLLARY III
Since A b c D, Fig. 20., is a square, b a c is a right
angle ; and as T v is parallel to a b, and t V to A c,
v' T v must be a right angle also.
As the ground plan of most buildings is rectangular,
it constantly happens in practice that their angles
(as the corners of ordinary houses) throw the lines to
the vanishing-points thus at right angles ; and so that
this law is observed, and v T V is kept a right angle,
it does not matter in general practice whether the
vanishing-points are thrown a little more or a little
less to the right or left of s : but it matters much
that the relation of the vanishing-points should be
accurate. Their position with respect to s merely
causes the spectator to see a little more or less on
one side or other of the house, which may be a
matter of chance or choice ; but their rectangular
relation determines the rectangular shape of the
building, which is an essential point.
PROBLEM IX
TO DRAW A SQUARE PILLAR, GIVEN IN POSITION AND
MAGNITUDE, ITS BASE AND TOP BEING IN HORI-
ZONTAL PLANES
h
Let a h, Fig. 23., be the square pillar.
Then, as it is given in position and magnitude,
the position and magnitude of the square it stands
upon must be given
(that is, the line ab or
a c in position), and
the height of its side
A E.
Find the sight-mag-
nitudes of A b and a E.
Draw the two sides
ab, ac, of the square of
the base, by Problem
VIII., as in Fig. 24.
From the points o, b,
and c, raise vertical
lines, a e, cf, b g.
Make a e equal to the sight-magnitude of A E.
Now because the top and base of the pillar are in
horizontal planes, the square of its top, fg, is parallel
to the square of its base, b c.
Therefore the line e F is parallel to A c, and e g
to A B.
Therefore E f has the same vanishing-point as A c,
and E G the same vanishing-point as A B.
From e draw e f to the vanishing-point of a c,
cutting cf'mf.
Similarly draw e g to the vanishing-point of a by
cutting b g in g.
Complete the square^/ in h, by drawing g h to
242
Fig. 24.
Problem IX — Corollary 243
the vanishing-point of ef, and / h to the vanishing-
point of eg, cutting each other in h. Then a g hf is
the square pillar required.
COROLLARY
It is obvious that if a E is equal to A c, the whole
figure will be a cube, and each side, a efc and a egb,
will be a square in a given vertical plane. And by
making A B or A c longer or shorter in any given
proportion, any form of rectangle may be given to
either of the sides of the pillar. No other rule is
therefore needed for drawing squares or rectangles
in vertical planes.
Also any triangle may be thus drawn in a vertical
plane, by enclosing it in a rectangle and determining,
in perspective ratio, on the sides of the rectangle,
the points of their contact with the angles of the
triangle.
And if any triangle, then any polygon.
A less complicated construction will, however, be
given hereafter.1
x See page 299. (note), after you have read Problem XVI.
PROBLEM X
TO DRAW A PYRAMID, GIVEN IN POSITION AND MAGNITUDE,
ON A SQUARE BASE IN A HORIZONTAL PLANE
Let ab, Fig. 25., be the four-sided pyramid. As it
is given in position and magnitude, the square base
D
Fig. 25.
on which it stands must be given in position and
magnitude, and its vertical height, c D.1
Draw a square pillar, A B G E, Fig. 26., on the
square base of the pyramid, and make the height of
1 If, instead of the vertical height, the length of A D is given,
the vertical must be deduced from it. See the Exercises on
this Problem in the Appendix, p. 283.
244
Problem X
245
the pillar A F equal to the vertical height of the
pyramid c D (Problem IX.). Draw the diagonals
G F, H I, on the top of the square pillar, cutting each
Fig. 27.
other in c. Therefore c is the centre of the square
f g h i. (Prob. VIII. Cor. II.)
Join C E, C A, C B.
Then A B c E is the pyramid required. If the base of
the pyramid is above the eye, as when a square spire
is seen on the top of a church-tower, the construction
will be as in Fig. 27.
PROBLEM XI
10 DRAW ANY CURVE IN a HORIZONTAL OR VERTICAL
PLANE
Let a b, Fig. 28., be the curve.
Enclose it in a rectangle, c d e f.
Fix the position of the point c or d, and draw the
rectangle. (Prob. VIII. Cor. I.)1
1
g
£
1
1
A
/
J
/
/ B
/
X J
J
i7
c
^-rj ID
Fig. 28.
Let c D E f, Fig. 29., be the rectangle so drawn.
If an extremity of the curve, as A, is in a side of the
rectangle, divide the side c E, Fig. 29., so that A c
shall be (in perspective ratio) to A e as a c is to A E
in Fig. 28. (Prob. V. Cor. II.)
Similarly determine the points of contact of the
curve and rectangle <?, /, g.
1 Or if the curve is in a vertical plane, Coroll. to Problem IX.
As a rectangle may be drawn in any position round any given
curve, its position with respect to the curve will in either case
be regulated by convenience. See the Exercises on this
Prob. em, in the Appendix, p. 289.
246
Problem XI — Corollary 247
If an extremity of the curve, as B, is not in a side of
the rectangle, let fall the perpendiculars b a, b b on
the rectangle sides. Determine the correspondent
points a and b in Fig. 29.,
as you have already deter-
mined a, B, e, and f.
From b, Fig. 29., draw b B
paralled to CD1, and from
a draw a b to the vanishing-
point of d F, cutting each
other in b. Then b is the
extremity of the curve.
Determine any other im-
portant point in the curve,
as p, in the same way, by letting fall p q and p r on
the rectangle sides.
Any number of points in the curve may be thus
determined, and the curve drawn through the series ;
in most cases, three or four will be enough. Prac-
tically, complicated curves may be better drawn in
perspective by an experienced eye than by rule, as the
fixing of the various points in haste involves too many
chances of error ; but it is well to draw a good
many by rule first, in order to give the eye its
experience.2
COROLLARY
If the curve required be a circle, Fig. 30., the
rectangle which encloses it will become a square, and
the curve will have four points of contact, A B c D, in
the middle of the sides of the square.
Draw the square, and as a square may be drawn
1 Or to its vanishing-point, if c D has one.
2 Of course, by dividing- the original rectangle into any
number of equal rectangles, and dividing the perspective
rectangle similarly, the curve may be approximately drawn
without any trouble ; but, when accuracy is required, the points
should be fixed, as in the problem.
248 The Elements of Perspective
about a circle in any position, draw it with its nearest
side, E G, parallel to the sight-line.
Let e f, Fig-. 31., be the
B square so drawn.
Draw its diagonals e f,
g H ; and through the centre
of the square (determined by
their intersection) draw A B
to the vanishing-point of G F,
and c d parallel to e g. Then
the points abcd are the four
points of the circle's contact.
A G On e g describe a half
Fig. 30. square, el ; draw the semi-
circle K A l ; and from its
r, the diagonals r e, r g, cutting the circle
H P' B Q' F
r
v^
/
D
?\m
K
\P
rv
A ~^\
O /
K
R
Fig. 31.
From the points x, y, where the circle cuts the
diagonals, raise perpendiculars, p x, q y, to e g.
From P and Q draw p p', Q q', to the vanishing-
point of G F, cutting the diagonals in m, n, and 0, p.
Problem XI — Corollary 249
Then w, «, o, p are four other points in the circle.
Through these eight points the circle may be drawn
by the hand accurately enough for general purpos s ;
but any number of points required may, of course, be
determined, as in Problem XI.
The distance e p is approximately one seventh of
E G, and may be assumed to be so in quick practice,
as the error involved is not greater than would be
incurred in the hasty operation of drawing the circle
and diagonals.
It may frequently happen that, in consequence of
associated constructions, it may be inconvenient to
draw E G parallel to the sight-line, the square being
perhaps first constructed in some oblique direction.
In such cases, Q G and E P must be determined in
perspective ratio by the dividing-point, the line E G
being used as a measuring-line.
[Ods. In drawing Fig. 31. the station-point has been taken
much nearer the paper than is usually advisable, in order to
show the character ot the curve in a very distinct form.
If the student turns the book so that E G may be vertical, Fig.
31. will represent the construction for drawing a circle in a
vertical plane, the sight-line being then of course parallel to
G L ; and the semicircles A D B, A c B, on each side of the dia-
meter A B, will represent ordinary semicircular arches seen in
perspective. In that case, if the book be held so that the line
E H is the top of the square, the upper semicircle will represent
a semicircular arch, above the eye, drawn in perspective. But
if the book be held so hat the line G F is the top of the square,
the upper se . icircle will represent a semicircular arch, below
the eye, drawn in per pective.
If the book be turned upside down, the figure will represent
a circle drawn on the ceiling, or any other horizontal plane
above the eye ; and the construction is, of course, accurate in
every case.]
PROBLEM XII
TO DIVIDE A CIRCLE DRAWN IN PERSPECTIVE INTO ANY
GIVEN NUMBER OF EQUAL PARTS
Let a b, Fig. 32., be the circle drawn in perspec-
tive. It is required to divide it into a given number
of equal parts ; in this case, 20.
Let K a l be the semicircle used in the construction.
Divide the semicircle K a l into half the number of
parts required ; in this case, 10.
Produce the line e g laterally, as far as may be
necessary.
From o, the centre of the semicircle k a l, draw
radii through the points of division of the semicircle,
/, q, r, &c, and produce them to cut the line E G in
p, Q, R, &c.
From the points p Q R draw the lines p p', Q q',
r r', &c, through the centre of the circle A b, each
cutting the circle in two points of its circumference.
Then these points divide the perspective circle as
required.
If from each of the points/, g, r, a vertical were
raised to the line E G, as in Fig. 31., and from the
point where it cut E g a line were drawn to the
vanishing-point, as Q q' in Fig. 31., this line would
also determine two of the points of division.
If it is required to divide a circle into any number
of given ««equal parts (as in the points A, B, and c,
Fig. 33.), the shortest way is thus to raise vertical
lines from A and B to the side of the perspective square
x Y, and then draw to the vanishing-point, cutting
the perspective circle in a and l>, the points required.
Only notice that if any point, as A, is on the nearer
side of the circle A B c, its representative point, a,
must be on the nearer side of the circle a b c\ and if
the point B is on the farther side of the circle A B c, b
250
252 The Elements of Perspective
must be on the farther side of a b c. If any point, as
c, is so much in the lateral arc of the circle as not to
be easily determinable by the vertical line, draw the
horizontal c P, find the correspondent/ in the side ot
the perspective square, and draw/ c parallel to x y,
cutting the perspective circle in c.
COROLLARY
It is obvious that if the points p', q', r', &c, by
which the circle is divided in Fig-. 32., be joined by
right lines, the resulting figure will be a regular
equilateral figure of twenty sides inscribed in the
circle. And if the circle be divided into given
unequal parts, and the points of division joined by
right lines, the resulting figure will be an irregular
polygon inscribed in the circle with sides of given
length.
Thus any polygon, regular or irregular, inscribed
in a circle, may be inscribed in position in a perspective
circle.
PROBLEM XIII
TO DRAW A SQUARE, GIVEN IN MAGNITUDE, WITHIN A
LARGER SQUARE GIVEN IN POSITION AND MAGNI-
TUDE ; THE SIDES OF THE TWO SQUARES BEING
PARALLEL
Let a b, Fig. 34., be the sight-magnitude of the
side of the smaller square, and A c that of the side of
the larger square.
Draw the larger square. Let d e f g be the square
so drawn.
Join E G and D F.
On either d e or D g set off, in perspective ratio,
d h equal to one half of b c. Through H draw H k
to the vanishing-point of D E, cutting D F in 1 and E G
in K. Through 1 and k draw 1 M, K L, to vanishing-
point of D G, cutting D F in l and E G in If. Join L M.
253
254 The Elements of Perspective
Then I k l m is the smaller square, inscribed as
required.1
COROLLARY
If, instead of one square within another, it be re-
quired to draw one circle within another, the dimen-
Fig. 36.
sions of both being- given, enclose each circle in a
square. Draw the squares first, and then the circles
within, as in Fig. 36.
1 If either of the sides of the greater square is parallel to the
E F
D H
Fig. 35.
plane of the picture, as D Gin Fig. 35., dg of course must be equal
to A c, i
Fig. 35-
to A c, and D H equal to - — , and the construction is as in
2
PROBLEM XIV
TO DRAW A TRUNCATED CIRCULAR CONE, GIVEN IN
POSITION AND MAGNITUDE, THE TRUNCATIONS
BEING IN HORIZONTAL PLANES, AND THE AXIS OF
THE CONE VERTICAL
Let a b c d, Fig. 37., be the portion of the cone
required
As it is given in magnitude, its diameters must be
given at the base and summit, A B and c d ; and its
vertical height, c e.1
^ 0
Fig. 37.
And as it is given in position, the centre of its base
must be given.
Draw in position, about this centre 2, the square
pillar a / d, Fig. 38., making its height, b g, equal to
c e ; and its side, a b, equal to A b.
In the square of its base, abed, inscribe a circle,
1 Or if the length of its side, A c, is given instead, take a e,
Fig. 37., equal to half the excess of A B over c D ; from the
point e raise the perpendicular c e. With centre a, and distance
A c, describe a circle cutting c e in c. Then c e is the vertical
height of the portion of cone required, or c E.
2 The direction of the side of" the square will of course be
regulated by convenience.
255
256 The Elements of Perspective
which therefore is of the diameter of the base of the
cone, A B.
In the square of its top, e f g h, inscribe concen-
trically a circle whose diameter shall equal c D.
(Coroll. Prob. XIII.)
Join the extremities of the circles by the right lines,
k /, n m.
Then k In tn is the portion of cone required.
COROLLARY I
If similar polygons be inscribed in similar positions
in the circles k n and I m (Coroll. Prob. XII.), and the
corresponding angles of the polygons joined by right
lines, the resulting figure will be a portion of a poly-
gonal pyramid. (The dotted lines in Fig. 38., con-
necting the extremities of two diameters and one
diagonal in the respective circles, occupy the position
of the three nearest angles of a regular octagonal
pyramid, having its angles set on the diagonals and
diameters of the square, a d, enclosing its base.)
If the cone or polygonal pyramid is not truncated,
its apex will be the centre of the upper square, as in
Fig. 26.
Problem XIV — Corollary II 257
COROLLARY II
If equal circles, or equal and similar polygons, be
inscribed in the upper and lower squares in Fig. 38.,
the resulting figure will be a vertical cylinder, or a
vertical polygonal pillar, of given height and diameter,
drawn in position.
COROLLARY III
If the circles in Fig. 38., instead of being inscribed
in the squares be and/,if, be inscribed in the sides
of the solid figure b e and d f, those sides being made
square, and the line b d of any given length, the re-
sulting figure will be, according to the constructions
employed, a cone, polygonal pyramid, cylinder, or
polygonal pillar, drawn in position about a horizontal
axis parallel to b d.
Similarly, if the circles are drawn in the sides g d
and e c, the resulting figures will be described about
a horizontal axis parallel to a b.
PROBLEM XV
TO DRAW AN INCLINED LINE, GIVEN IN POSITION AND
MAGNITUDE
We have hitherto been examining- the conditions
of horizontal and vertical lines only, or of curves
enclosed in rectangles.
We must, in conclusion, investigate the perspective
of inclined lines, beginning with a single one given
in position. For the sake of completeness of system,
I give in Appendix II. Article III. the development
Fig. 39.
of this problem from the second. But, in practice,
the position of an inclined line may be most con-
veniently defined by considering it as the diagonal of
a rectangle, as A B in Fig. 39., and I shall therefore,
though at some sacrifice of system, examine it here
under that condition.
If the sides of the rectangle a c and a d are given,
the slope of the line a b is determined ; and then its
position will depend on that of the rectangle. If, as
in Fig. 39., the rectangle is parallel to the picture
plane, the line A b must be so also. If, as in Fig. 40.,
the rectangle is inclined to the picture plane, the line
258
Problem XV
259
A b will be so also. So that, to fix the position of a b,
the line a c must be given in position and magnitude,
and the height a d.
If these are given, and it is only required to draw
the single line A B in perspective, the construction is
entirely simple ; thus : —
Draw the line A c by Problem I.
Let a c, Fig. 41., be the line so drawn. From a
and c raise the vertical lines a d, c b. Make a d equal
to the sight-magnitude of A D. From d draw d b to
the vanishing-point of a c, cutting b c in b.
Join a b. Then a b is the inclined line required.
If the line is inclined in the opposite direction, as
D c in Fig. 42., we have only to join d c instead of a b
in Fig. 41., and d c will be the line required.
I shall hereafter call the line A c, when used to
define the position of an inclined line A B (Fig. 40.),
the " relative horizontal " of the line A b.
Observation
In general, inclined lines are most needed for gable
roofs, in which, when the conditions are properly
stated, the vertical height of the gable, x Y, Fig. 43.,
is given, and the base line, A c, in position. When
these are given, ^raw A c ; raise vertical A D ; make
A D equal to sight-magnitude of x Y ; complete the
260 The Elements of Perspective
perspective-rectangle a d b c ; join A b and d c (as by
dotted lines in figure); and through the intersection
of the dotted lines draw vertical x y, cutting d b in y.
Y'B'
Fig. 43.
Join ay, c y; and these lines are the sides of the
gable. If the length of the roof A a' is also given, draw
in perspective the complete parallelopiped a' d' b c,
and from Y draw Y y' to the vanishing-point of A a',
Fig. 44.
cutting d b' in y'. Join a' y, and you have the slope
of the farther side of the roof.
The construction above the eye is as in Fig. 44. ; the
roof is reversed in direction merely to familiarise the
student with the different aspects of its lines.
PROBLEM XVI
TO FIND THE VANISHING-POINT OF A GIVEN INCLINED
LINE
If, in Fig. 43. or Fig. 44., the lines A Y and a' y'
be produced, the student will find that they meet.
Let p, Fig. 45., be the point at which they meet.
From P let fall the vertical p v on the sight-line,
cutting the sight-line in v.
Then the student will find experimentally that v is
the vanishing-point of the line A c.1
Complete the rectangle of the base A c', by draw-
ing a'c' to v, and c c' to the vanishing-point of A a'.
Join y' c\
Now if y c and y' c' be produced downwards, the
student will find that they meet.
Let them be produced, and meet in p'.
Produce p v, and it will be found to pass through
the point p'.
Therefore if a y (or c y), Fig. 45., be any inclined
line drawn in perspective by Problem XV., and A c
the relative horizontal (a c in Figs. 39, 40.), also
drawn in perspective;
Through v, the vanishing-point of A c, draw the
vertical p p' upwards and downwards.
Produce A Y (or c y), cutting p p' in p (or p').
Then p is the vanishing-point of A Y (or p' of c y).
The student will observe that, in order to find the
point P by this method, it is necessary first to draw
a portion of the given inclined line by Problem XV.
Practically, it is always necessary to do so, and,
therefore, I give the problem in this form.
Theoretically, as will be shown in the analysis of
the problem, the point P should be found by drawing
a line from the station-point parallel to the given
inclined line : but there is no practical means of
drawing such a line ; so that in whatever terms the
1 The demonstration is in Appendix II. Article III.
261
262 The Elements of Perspective
problem may be given, a portion of the inclined line
Fig. 45.
(a y or c y) must always be drawn in perspective
before P can be found.
PROBLEM XVII
TO FIND THE DIVIDING-POINTS OF A GIVEN INCLINED
LINE
Let p, Fig. 46., be the vanishing-point of the in-
clined line, and v the vanishing-point of the relative
horizontal.
Find the dividing-points of the relative horizontal,
D and d'.
Through p draw the horizontal line x v.
D
D'
Fig. 46.
With centre p and distance D p describe the two
arcs D x and d' y, cutting the line x Y in x and Y.
Then x and y are the dividing-points of the in-
clined line.1
Obs. The dividing-points found by the above
rule, used with the ordinary measuring-line, will lay
off distances on the retiring inclined line, as the
ordinary dividing-points lay them off on the retiring
horizontal line.
Another dividing-point, peculiar in its application,
is sometimes useful, and is to be found as follows :
1 The demonstration is in Appendix II., p. 303.
263
264 The Elements of Perspective
Let A b, Fig. 47., be the given inclined line drawn
in perspective, and A c the relative horizontal.
Find the vanishing-points, v and E, of A c and A B ;
D, the dividing-point of a c ; and the sight-magnitude
of A c on the measuring-line, or A c.
From D erect the perpendicular d f.
Toin c b, and produce it to cut d f in f. Join e f.
Fig. 47.
Then, by similar triangles, d f is equal to E v, and
E F is parallel to d v.
Hence it follows that if from D, the dividing-point
of A c, we raise a perpendicular and make D F equal
to E v, a line c F, drawn from any point c on the
measuring-line to F, will mark the distance A B on
the inclined line, A B being the portion of the given
inclined line which forms the diagonal of the vertical
rectangle of which A c is the base.
PROBLEM XVIII
TO FIND THE SIGHT-LINE OF AN INCLINED PLANE IN
WHICH TWO LINES ARE GIVEN IN POSITION1
Fig. 48.
As in order to fix the position of a line two points
in it must be given, so in order to fix the position of
a plane, two lines in it must be given.
1 Read the Article on this problem in the Appendix, p. 300,
before investigating' the problem itself.
26^
265 The Elements of Perspective
Let the two lines be A B and c d, Fig. 48.
As they are given in position, the relative hori-
zontals A E and c F must be given.
Then by Problem XVI. the vanishing-point of A b
is v, and of c d, v'.
Join v v' and produce it to cut the sight-line
in x.
Then v x is the sight-line of the inclined plane.
Like the horizontal sight-line, it is of indefinite
length ; and may be produced in either direction as
occasion requires, crossing the horizontal line of
sight, if the plane continues downward in that
direction.
x is the vanishing-point of all horizontal lines in
the inclined plane.
PROBLEM XIX
TO FIND THE VANISHING-POINT OF STEEPEST LINES IN
AN INCLINED PLANE WHOSE SIGHT-LINE IS GIVEN
Let v x, Fig. 49., be the given sight-line.
Produce it to cut the horizontal sight-line in x.
Therefore x is the vanishing point or horizontal
lines in the given inclined plane. (Problem XVIII.)
Join T x, and draw T Y at right angles to T x.
Therefore Y is the rectangular vanishing-point
corresponding to x.1
From Y erect the vertical Y p, cutting the sight-
line of the inclined plane in p.
1 That is to say, the vanishing-point of horizontal lines
drawn at right angles to the lines whose vanishing-point is X.
267
268 The Elements of Perspective
Then p is the vanishing-point of steepest lines in
the plane.
All lines drawn to it, as Q p, r p, n p, &c, are the
steepest possible in the plane ; and all lines drawn
to x, as q x, o x, &c, are horizontal, and at right
angles to the lines p o, p R, &c.
PROBLEM XX
TO FIND THE VANISHING-POINT OF LINES PERPENDICU-
LAR TO THE SURFACE OF A GIVEN INCLINED PLANE
Fig. 50.
As the inclined plane is given, one of its steepest
lines must be given, or may be ascertained.
Let a b, Fig. 50., be a portion of a steepest line
269
270 The Elements of Perspective
in the given plane, and v the vanishing-point of its
relative horizontal.
Through v draw the vertical G F upwards and
downwards.
From A set off any portion of the relative hori-
zontal A c, and on A c describe a semicircle in a
vertical plane, a d c, cutting a b in E.
Join E c, and produce it to cut G F in F.
Then f is the vanishing-point required.
For, because A E c is an angle in a semicircle, it is
a right angle ; and therefore the line E F is at right
angles to the line A B ; and similarly all lines drawn
to f, and therefore parallel to e f, are at right angles
with any line which cuts them, drawn to the vanish-
ing-point of A B.
And because the semicircle A d c is in a vertical
plane, and its diameter A c is at right angles to the
horizontal lines traversing the surface of the inclined
plane, the line E c, being in this semicircle, is also at
right angles to such traversing lines. And there-
fore the line E c, being at right angles to the steepest
lines in the plane, and to the horizontal lines in it,
is perpendicular to its surface.
The preceding series of constructions, with the
examples in the first Article of the Appendix, put it
in the power oi the student to draw any form, how-
ever complicated \ which does not involve intersection
of curved surfaces. I shall not proceed to the ana-
lysis of any of these more complex problems, as they
are entirely useless in the ordinary practice of artists.
For a few words only I must ask the reader's further
patience, respecting the general placing and scale of
the picture.
As the horizontal sight-line is drawn through the
1 As in algebraic science, much depends, in complicated
perspective, on the student's ready invention of expedients,
and on his quick sight of the shortest way in which the
solution may be accomplished, when there are several ways.
Placing and Scale of Picture 271
sight-point, and the sight-point is opposite the eye,
the sight-line is always on a level with the eye.
Above and below the sight-line, the eye compre-
hends, as it is raised or depressed while the head is
held upright, about an equal space ; and, on each
side of the sight-point, about the same space is
easily seen without turning the head ; so that if
a picture represented the true field of easy vision, it
ought to be circular, and have the sight-point in its
centre. But because some parts of any given view
are usually more interesting than others, either the
uninteresting parts are left out, or somewhat more
than would generally be seen of the interesting parts
is included, by moving the field of the picture a little
upwards or downwards, so as to throw the sight-
point low or high. The operation will be understood
in a moment by cutting an aperture in a piece of
pasteboard, and moving it up and down in front of
the eye, without moving the eye. It will be seen to
embrace sometimes the low, sometimes the high
objects, without altering their perspective, only the
eye will be opposite the lower part of the aperture
when it sees the higher objects, and vice versa.
There is no reason, in the laws of perspective,
why the picture should not be moved to the right
or left of the sight-point, as well as up or down ;
but there is this practical reason. The moment
the spectator sees the horizon in a picture high, he
tries to hold his head high, that is, in its right place.
When he sees the horizon in a picture low, he
similarly tries to put his head low. But, if the sight-
point is thrown to the left hand or right hand, he
does not understand that he is to step a little to the
right or left ; and if he places himself, as usual, in
the middle, all the perspective is distorted. Hence
it is generally inadvisable to remove the sight-point
laterally, from the centre of the picture. The Dutch
painters, however, fearlessly take the license of
placing it to the right or left ; and often with good effect.
272 The Elements of Perspective
The rectilinear limitation of the sides, top, and
base of the picture is of course quite arbitrary, as
the space of a landscape would be which was seen
through a window ; less or more being- seen at the
spectator's pleasure, as he retires or advances.
The distance of the station-point is not so arbitrary.
In ordinary cases it should not be less than the
intended greatest dimension (height or breadth) of
the picture. In most works by the great masters it
is more ; they not only calculate on their pictures
being seen at considerable distances, but they like
breadth of mass in buildings, and dislike the sharp
angles which always result from station-points at
short distances.1
Whenever perspective, done by true rule, looks
wrong, it is always because the station-point is too
near. Determine, in the outset, at what distance the
spectator is likely to examine the work, and never use
a station-point within a less distance.
There is yet another and a very important reason,
not only for care in placing the station-point, but for
that accurate calculation of distance and observance
of measurement which have been insisted on through-
out this work. All drawings of objects on a reduced
scale are, if rightly executed, drawings of the
appearance of the object at the distance which in
true perspective reduces it to that scale. They are
not small drawings of the object seen near, but
drawings the real size of the object seen far off. Thus
if you draw a mountain in a landscape, three inches
high, you do not reduce all the features of the near
mountain so as to come into three inches of paper.
You could not do that. All that you can do is to
give the appearance of the mountain, when it is so far
1 The greatest masters are also fond of parallel perspective,
that is to say, of having one side of their buildings fronting
them full, and therefore parallel fro the picture plane, while the
other side vanishes to the sight-point. This is almost always
done in figure backgrounds, securing simple and balanced lines.
Placing and Scale of Picture 273
off that three inches of paper would really hide it
from you. It is precisely the same in drawing any
other object. A face can no more be reduced in scale
than a mountain can. It is infinitely delicate already ;
it can only be quite rightly rendered on its own scale,
or at least on the slightly diminished scale which
would be fixed by placing the plate of glass, supposed
to represent the field of the picture, close to the figures.
Correggio and Raphael were both fond of this slightly
subdued magnitude of figure. Colossal painting, in
which Correggio excelled all others, is usually the
enlargement of a small picture (as a colossal sculpture
is of a small statue), in order to permit the subject of
it to be discerned at a distance. The treatment of
colossal (as distinguished from ordinary) paintings
will depend therefore, in general, on the principles of
optics. more than on those of perspective, though,
occasionally, portions may be represented as if they
were the projection of near objects on a plane behind
them. In all points the subject is one of great
difficulty and subtlety ; and its examination does not
fall within the compass of this essay.
Lastly, it will follow from these considerations,
and the conclusion is one of great practical import-
ance, that, though pictures may be enlarged, they
cannot be reduced, in copying them. All attempts
to engrave pictures completely on a reduced scale are,
for this reason, nugatory. The best that can be done
is to give the aspect of the picture at the distance
which reduces it in perspective to the size required ;
or, in other words, to make a drawing of the distant
effect of the picture. Good painting, like nature's
own work, is infinite, and unreduceable.
I wish this book had less tendency towards the
infinite and unreduceable. It has so far exceeded the
limits I hoped to give it, that I doubt not the reader
will pardon an abruptness of conclusion, and be
thankful, as I am myself, to get to an end on any
terms.
APPENDIX
i
PRACTICE AND OBSERVATIONS
II
DEMONSTRATIONS
I
PRACTICE AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE
PRECEDING PROBLEMS
PROBLEM I
An example will be necessary to make this problem clear
to the general student.
The nearest corner of a piece of pattern on the carpet is
4^ feet beneath the eye, 2 feet to our right and 3! feet in
direct distance from us. We intend to make a drawing of
the pattern which shall be seen
properly when held ih foot from
the eye. It is required to fix
the position of the corner of the
piece of pattern.
Let A B, Fig. 51., be our sheet
of paper, some 3 feet wide.
Make S T equal to i£ foot. Draw
the line of sight through s.
Produce T S, and make D S
equal to 2 feet, therefore T D
equal to 3^ feet. Draw D c,
equal to 2 feet ; C P, equal to
4 feet. Join T c (cutting the
sight-line in Q) and T P.
Let fall the vertical Q p'. then
p' is the point required.
If the lines, as in the figure,
fall outside of your sheet of paper, in order to draw them, it
is necessary to attach other sheets of paper to its edges.
This is inconvenient, but must be done at first that you may
see your way clearly ; and sometimes afterwards, though
there are expedients for doing without such extension in fast
sketching.
It is evident, however, that no extension of surface could
be of any use to us, if the distance T D, instead of being 3^
feet, were 100 feet, or a mile, as it might easily be in a
landscape.
It is necessary, therefore, to obtain some other means of
construction; to do which we. must examine the principle
of the problem.
277
Fig. 51.
278 The Elements of Perspective
In the analysis of Fig. 2., in the introductory remarks, I
used the word "height" only of the tower, Q P, because it
was only to its vertical height that the law deduced from the
figure could be applied. For suppose it had been a pyramid,
as O Q P, Fig. 52., then the image of its side, Q P, being,
like every other magnitude, limited on the glass A B by the
lines coming from its extremities, would appear only of the
length Q' s ; and it is not true that Q' S is to Q P as T S is to
T P. But if we let fall a vertical Q D from Q, so as to get the
vertical height of the pyramid, then it is true that Q' S is to
Q D as T s is to T D.
Supposing this figure represented, not a pyramid, but a
triangle on the ground, and that Q D and Q P are horizontal
Fig. 52.
lines, expressing lateral distance from the line T D, still
the rule would be false for Q P and true for Q D. And,
similarly, it is true for all lines which are parallel, like Q D,
to the plane of the picture A B, and false for all lines which
are inclined to it at an angle.
Hence generally. Let P Q (Fig. 2. in Introduction, p. 215)
be any magnitude parallel to the plane of the picture ; and
p' Q' its image on the picture.
Then always the formula is true which you learned in the
Introduction : p' Q' is to P Q as S T is to D T.
Now the magnitude P dash Q dash in this formula I call
the " sight-m AGNITUDK " of the line P Q. The student must
iix this term, and the meaning of it, well in his mind. The
"sight-magnitude" of a line is the magnitude which bears
to the real line the same proportion that the distance of the
picture bears to the distance of the object. Thus, if a tower
be a hundred feet high, and a hundred yards off; and the
picture, a piece of glass, is one yard from the spectator.
Appendix 279
between him and the tower ; the distance of picture being
then to distance of tower as I to ioo, the sight-magnitude
of the tower's height will be as I to ioo ; that is to say, one
foot. If the tower is two hundred yards distant, the sight-
magnitude of its height will be half a foot, and so on.
But farther. It is constantly necessary, in perspective
operations, to measure the other dimensions of objects by
the sight-magnitude of their vertical lines. Thus, if the
tower, which is a hundred feet high, is square, and twenty-
five feet broad on each side ; if the sight-magnitude of the
height is one foot, the measurement of the side, reduced to
ihe same scale, will be the hundredth part of twenty-five feet,
or three inches : and, accordingly, I use in this treatise the term
•' sight-magnitude ■ indiscriminately for all lines reduced in
the same proportion as the vertical lines of the object If I
tell you to find the " sight-magnitude '' of any line, I mean,
always, find the magnitude which bears to that line the
proportion of S T to D T ; or, in simpler terms, reduce the line
to the scale which you have fixed by the first determination
of the length s T.
Therefore, you must learn to draw quickly to scale before
you do anything else ; for all the measurements of your
object must be reduced to the scale fixed by S T before you
can use them in your diagram. If the object is fifty feet
from you, and your paper one foot, all the lines of the object
must be reduced to a scale of one fiftieth before you can use
them ; if the object is two thousand feet from you, and your
paper one foot, all your lines must be reduced to the scale of
one two-thousandth before you can use them, and so on.
Only in ultimate practice, the reduction never need be
tiresome, for, in the case of large distances, accuracy is
never required. If a building is three or four miles distant,
a hairbreadth of accidental variation in a touch makes a
difference of ten or twenty feet in height or breadth, if
estimated by accurate perspective law. Hence it is never
attempted to apply measurements with precision at such
distances. Measurements are only required within distances
of, at the most, two or three hundred feet. Thus it may be
necessary to represent a cathedral nave precisely as seen
from a spot seventy feet in front of a given pillar ; but we
shall hardly be required to draw a cathedral three miles
distant precisely as seen from seventy feet in advance of
a given milestone. Of course, if such a thing be required,
it can be done ; only the reductions are somewhat long and
complicated : in ordinary cases It :s easy to assume the
280 The Elements of Perspective
distance S T so as to get at the reduced dimensions in a
moment. Thus, let the pillar of the nave, in the case
supposed, be 42 feet high, and we are required to stand
70 feet from it : assume S T to be equal to 5 feet. Then,
as 5 is to 70 so will the sight-magnitude required be to
42 ; that is to say, the sight-magnitude of the pillar's height
will be 3 feet. If we make S T equal to t.\ feet, the pillar's
height will be \\ foot, and so on.
And for fine divisions into irregular parts which cannot be
measured, the ninth and tenth problems of the sixth book of
Fig. 53.
Euclid will serve you : the following construction is, however.
I think, more practically convenient : —
The line A B (Fig. 53.) is divided by given points, a, b, c,
into a given number of irregularly unequal parts ; it is
required to divide any other line, c D, into an equal number
of parts, bearing to each other the same proportions as the
parts of A B, and arranged in the same order.
Draw the two lines parallel to each other, as in the figure.
Join A C and B D, and produce the lines A C, B D, till they
meet in P.
Join a P, b P, c P, cutting C D in /J g, h.
Then the line C D is divided as required, in/, jf, h.
In the figure the lines a b and C D are accidentally per-
pendicular to A P. There is no need for their being so.
Now, to return to our first problem.
Appendix 281
The construction given in the figure is only the quickest
mathematical way of obtaining, on the picture, the sight-
magnitudes of D C and P C, which are both magnitudes
parallel with the picture plane. But if these magnitudes are
too great to be thus put on the paper, you have only to obtain
the reduction by scale. Thus, if T S be one foot, T D eighty
feet, D C forty feet, and C P ninety feet, the distance Q S
must be made equal to one eightieth of D C, or half a foot ;
and the distance Q p', one eightieth of C P, or one eightieth
of ninety feet ; that is to say, nine eighths of a foot, or thirteen
and a half inches. The lines C T and P T are thus practically
useless, it being only necessary to measure Q S and Q P, on
your paper, of the due sight-magnitudes. But the mathe-
matical construction, given in Problem I., is the basis of all
succeeding problems, and, if it is once thoroughly understood
and practised (it can only be thoroughly understood by
practice), all the other problems will follow easily.
Lastly. Observe that any perspective operation whatever
may be performed with reduced dimensions of every line
employed, so as to bring it conveniently within the limits of
your paper. When the required figure is thus constructed
on a small scale, you have only to enlarge it accurately in
the same proportion in which you reduced the lines of con-
struction, and you will have the figure constructed in perspec-
tive on the scale required for use.
PROBLEM IX
The drawing of most buildings occurring in ordinary
practice will resolve itself into applications of this problem.
In general, any house, or block of houses, presents itself
under the main conditions assumed here in Fig. 54. There
will be an angle or corner somewhere near the spectator, as
A B ; and the level of the eye will usually be above the base
of the building, of which, therefore, the horizontal upper lines
will slope down to the vanishing-points, and the base lines
rise to them. The following practical directions will, however,
meet nearly all cases : —
Let A B, Fig. 54., be any important vertical line in the
block of buildings ; if it is the side of a street, you may fix
upon such a line at the division between two houses. If its
real height, distance, &c, are given, you will proceed with
the accurate construction of the problem ; but usually you
will neither know, nor care, exactly how high the building is,
282 The Elements of Perspective
or how far off. In such case draw the line A B, as nearly as
you can guess, about the part of the picture it ought to
occupy, and on such a scale as you choose. Divide it into
any convenient number of equal parts, according to the height
you presume it to be. If you suppose it to be twenty feet high,
you may divide it into twenty parts, and let each part stand
for a foot ; if thirty feet high, you may divide it into ten parts,
and let each part stand for three feet ; if seventy feet high,
into fourteen parts, and let each part stand for five feet ; and
Fig. 54.
so on, avoiding thus very minute divisions till you come to
details. Then observe how high your eye reaches upon this
vertical line ; suppose, for instance, that it is thirty feet high
and divided into ten parts, and you are standing so as to raise
your head to about six feet above its base, then the sight-line
may be drawn, as in the figure, through the second division
from the ground If you are standing above the house, draw
the sight-line above B ; if below the house, below A ; at such
height or depth as you suppose may be accurate (a yard or
two more or less matters little at ordinary distances, while at
great distances perspective rules become nearly useless, the
eye serving you better than the necessarily imperfect calcula-
Appendix
283
tion). Then fix your sight-point and station-point, the latter
with proper reference to the scale of the line A B. As you
cannot, in all probability, ascertain the exact direction of the
line A V or B V, draw the slope B V as it appears to you, cutting
the sight-line in v. Thus having fixed one vanishing-point,
the other, and the dividing- points, must be accurately found
by rule ; for, as before stated, whether your entire group of
points (vanishing and dividing) falls a little more or less to
the right or left of S does not signify, but the relation of the
points to each other does signify. Then draw the measuring-
line B G, either through A or B, choosing always the steeper
slope of the two ; divide the measuring-line into parts of the
Fig. 55.
same length as those used on A B, and let them stand for the
same magnitudes. Thus, suppose there are two rows of
windows in the house front, each window six feet high by
three wide, and separated by intervals of three feet, both
between window and window and between tier and tier : each
of the divisions here standing for three feet, the lines drawn
from B G to the dividing-point D fix the lateral dimensions,
and the divisions on A B the vertical ones. For other
magnitudes it would be necessary to subdivide the parts on
the measuring- line, or on A B, as required. The lines which
regulate the inner sides or returns of the windows (<z, b, c,
&c.) of course are drawn to the vanishing-point of B F (the
other side of the house \ if F B v represents a right angle ; if
not, their own vanishing-point must be found separately for
these returns. But see Practice on Problem XI
284 The Elements of Perspective
Interior angles, such as E B C, Fig. 55. (suppose the corner
of a room), are to be treated in the same way, each side of
the room having its measurements separately carried to it
from the measuring-line. It may sometimes happen in such
cases that we have to carry the measurement up from the
corner B, and that the sight-magnitudes are tnven us from the
length of the line A B. For instance, suppose the room is
eighteen feet high, and therefore A B is eighteen feet ; and
we have to lay off lengths of six feet on the top of the room
wall, B C. Find D, the dividing-point of B C. Draw a
measuring-line, B F, from B ; and another, g C, anywhere
above. On B F lay off B G equal to one third of A B, or six
feet ; and draw from D, through G and B, the lines Gg, B b,
to the upper measuring-line. Then g b is six feet on that
measuring-line. Make b c,c h, &c, equal to b g ; and draw
c e, hf, &c, to D, cutting B C in e and /, which mark the
required lengths of six feet each at the top of the wall.
PROBLEM X
This is one of the most important foundational problems
in perspective, and it is necessary that the student should
entirely familiarise himself with its conditions.
In order to do so, he must first observe
Q these general relations of magnitude in
any pyramid on a square base.
Let A G H, Fig. 56., be any pyramid
on a square base.
The best terms in which its magnitude
can be given, are the length of one side
of its base, A H, and its vertical altitude
(C D in Fig. 25.) ; for, knowing these, we
know all the other magnitudes. But
these are not the terms in which its size
will be usually ascertainable. Generally,
we shall have given us, and be able to
ascertain by measurement, one side of its base A H, and
either A G the length of one of the lines of its angles, or
B G (or b' g) the length of a line drawn from its vertex,
G, to the middle of the side of its base. In measuring a real
pyramid, A G will usually be the line most easily found ; but
in many architectural problems B G is given, or is most easily
ascertainable.
Observe therefore this general construction.
Appendix
285
Fig. 57.
Let A B D E, Fig. 57., be the square base of any pyramid.
Draw its diagonals, A E, B D, cutting each other in its
:entre, C.
Bisect any side, A B, in F.
From F erect vertical F G. G
Produce F B to H, and make F H
jqual to A C.
Now if the vertical altitude of the
pyramid (C D in Fig. 25.) be given,
make F G equal to this vertical
altitude.
Join G B and G H.
Then G B and G H are the true
magnitudes of G B and G H in
Figure 56.
If G B is given, and not the vertical
altitude, with centre B, and distance
G B, describe circle cutting F G in G,
and F G is the vertical altitude.
If G H is given, describe the circle
from H, with distance G H, and it will
similarly cut F G in G.
It is especially necessary for the student to examine this
construction thoroughly, because in many complicated forms
of ornaments, capitals of columns, &c, the lines B G and G H
become the limits or bases of curves, which are elongated on
the longer (or angle) profile G H, and shortened on the shorter
(or lateral) profile B G. We will take a simple instance, but
must previously note another construction.
It is often necessary, when pyramids are the roots of some
ornamental form, to divide them horizontally at a given
vertical height. The shortest way of doing so is in general
the following.
Let A E c, Fig. 58., be any pyramid on a square base ABC,
and ADC the square pillar used in its construction.
Then by construction (Problem X.) B D and A F are both
of the vertical height of the pyramid.
Of the diagonals, F E, D E, choose the shortest (in this case
I D e), and produce it to cut the sight-line in v.
Therefore v is the vanishing-point of D E.
Divide D B, as may be required, into the sight-magnitudes
of the given vertical heights at which the pyramid is to be
divided-
From the po nts of division, 1, 2, 3, &c, draw to the
vanishing-point v. The lines so drawn cut the angle line oi
286 The Elements of Perspective
the pyramid, B E, at the required elevations. Thus, in the
figure, it is required to draw a horizontal black band on the
pyramid at three fifths of its height, and in breadth one
twentieth of its height. The line B D is divided into five
parts, of which three are counted from B upwards. Then
the line drawn to v marks the base of the black band.
Then one fourth of one of the five parts is measured, which
similarly gives the breadth of the band. The terminal lines
Fig. 58
of the band are then drawn on the sides of the pyramid
parallel to A B (or to its vanishing-point if it has one), and
to the vanishing-point of B c.
If it happens that the vanishing-points of the diagonals are
awkwardly placed for use, bisect the nearest base line of the
pyramid in B, as in Fig. 59.
Erect the vertical D B and join G B and D G (G being the
apex of pyramid).
Find the vanishing-point of D G, and use D B for division,
carrying the measurements to the line G B.
In Fig. 59., if we join A D and D c, A D C is the vertical
Appendix 287
a b
Fig. 61.
288 The Elements of Perspective
profile of the whole pyramid, and BDCof the half pyramid,
corresponding to F G B in Fig. 57.
We may now proceed to an architectural example.
Let A H, Fig. 60., be the vertical profile of the capital ot
a pillar, A B the semi-diameter of its head or abacus, and
F D the semi-diameter of its shaft.
Let the shaft be circular, and the abacus square, down to
the level E.
Join B D, E F, and produce them to meet in G.
Fig. 62.
Therefore E C G is the semi-profile of a reversed pyramid
containing the capital.
Construct this pyramid, with the square of the abacus, in
the required perspective, as in Fig. 61. ; making A E equal to
A E in Fig. 60., and A K, the side of the square, equal to
twice A B in Fig. 60. Make E G equal to C G, and E D equal
to C D. Draw D F to the vanishing-point of the diagonal
D v (the figure is too small to include this vanishing-point),
and F is the level of the point F in Fig. 60., on the side of
the pyramid.
Draw F m, F «, to the vanishing-points of A H and A K.
Then F n and F m are horizontal lines across the pyramid
at the level F, forming at that level two sides of a square.
Appendix
289
Complete the square, and within it inscribe a circle, as in
Fig. 62., which is left unlettered that its construction may
be clear. At the extremities of this draw vertical lines,
which will be the sides of the shaft in its right place It will
be found to be somewhat smaller in diameter than the entire
shaft in Fig. 60., because at the centre of the square it is
more distant than the nearest edge of the square abacus.
The curves of the capital may then be drawn approximately
by the eye. They are not quite accurate in Fig. 62., there
being a subtlety in their junction with the shaft which could
not be shown on so small a scale without confusing the
student ; the curve on the left springing from a point a little
way round the circle behind the shaft, and that on the right
from a point on this side of the circle a little way within the
edge of the shaft. But for their more accurate construction
see Notes on Problem XIV.
PROBLEM XI
It is seldom that any complicated curve, except occa-
sionally a spiral, needs to be drawn in perspective ; but the
student will do well to practise for some time any fantastic
i\^
G
Fig. 63.
shapes which he can find drawn on flat surface*, as on
wall-papers, carpets, &c, in order to accustom himself to
the strange and great changes which perspective causes in
them.
The curves most required in architectural drawing, after
U
290 The Elements of Perspective
the circle, are those of pointed arches ; in which, however,
all that will be generally needed is to fix the apex, and two
points in the sides. Thus if we have to draw a range of
pointed arches, such as A P B, Fig. 63., draw the measured
arch to its sight-magnitude first neatly in a rectangle,
A B C D ; then draw the diagonals A D and B C ; where they
cut the curve draw a horizontal line (as at the level E in the
figure), and carry it along the range to the vanishing-point,
fixing the points where the arches cut their diagonals all
along. If the arch is cusped, a line should be drawn at F
to mark the height of the cusps, and verticals raised at G
and H, to determine the interval between them. Any other
Fig. 64.
points may be similarly determined, but these will usually
be enough. Figure 63. shows the perspective construction
of a square niche of good Veronese Gothic, with anuncusped
arch of similar size and curve beyond.
In Fig. 64. the more distant arch only is lettered, as the
construction of the nearer explains itself more clearly to
the eye without letters. The more distant arch shows the
general construction for all arches seen underneath, as of
bridges, cathedral aisles, &c. The rectangle A B c D is first
drawn to contain the outside arch ; then the depth of the
arch, A a, is determined by the measuring-line, and the
rectangle, abed, drawn for the inner arch.
a a, B I, &c, go to one vanishing-point ; A B, a 6, &c, to
the opposite one.
Appendix 291
In the nearer arch another narrow rectangle is drawn to
determine the cusp. The parts which would actually come
into sight are slightly shaded.
PROBLEM XIV
Several exercises will be required on this important
problem.
I. It is required to draw a circular flat-bottomed dish
narrower at the bottom than the top ; the vertical depth
being given, and the diameter at the top and bottom.
Fig. 65.
Let a b, Fig. 65., be the diameter of the bottom, a c the
diameter of the top, and a d its vertical depth.
Take A D in position equal to a c.
On A D draw the square A B C D, and inscribe in it
a circle.
Therefore, the circle so inscribed has the diameter of the
top of the dish.
From A and D let fall verticals, A E, D H, each equal
to a d.
Join E H, and describe square EFGH, which accordingly
292 The Elements of Perspective
will be equal to the square A B C D, and be at the depth
a d beneath it.
Within the square E F G H describe a square I K, whose
diameter shall be equal to a b.
Describe a circle within the square I K. Therefore the
circle so inscribed has its diameter equal to a b ; and it is in
the centre of the square efgh, which is vertically beneath
the square A B c D.
Fig. 66.
Therefore the circle in the square I K represents the
bottom of the dish.
Now the two circles thus drawn will either intersect one
another, or they will not.
If they intersect one another, as in the figure, and they
are below the eye, part of the bottom of the
dish is seen within it.
To avoid confusion, let us take then two
intersecting circles without the enclosing
squares, as in Fig. 66.
Draw right lines, a b, c d, touching both
circles externally. Then the parts of these
lines which connect the circles are the sides
of the dish. They are drawn in Fig. 65.
without any prolongations, but the best way
to construct them is as in Fig. 66.
If the circles do not intersect each othei,
the smaller must either be within the larger
or not within it.
If within the larger, the whole of the bottom
of the dish is seen from above, Fig. 67. a.
If the smaller circle is not within the
Fro. 67. larger, none of the bottom is seen inside the
dish, b.
If the circles are above instead of beneath the eye, the
bottom of the dish is seen beneath it, c.
If one circle is above and another beneath the eye, neither
Appendix 293
the bottom nor top of the dish is seen, cL Unless the object
be very large, the circles in this case will have little apparent
curvature.
II. The preceding problem is simple, because the lines of
the profile of the object (a b and c d, Fig. 66.) are straight.
But if these lines of profile are curved, the problem becomes
much more complex : once mastered, however, it leaves no
farther difficulty in perspective.
Let it be required to draw a flattish circular cup or vase,
with a given curve of profile.
The basis of construction is given in Fig. 68., half of it
only being drawn, in order that the eye may seize its lines
easily.
Fig. 68.
Two squares (of the required size) are first drawn, one
above the other, with a given vertical interval, A C, between
them, and each is divided into eight parts by its diameters
and diagonals. In these squares two circles are drawn ;
which are, therefore, of equal size, and one above the other.
Two smaller circles, also of equal size, are drawn within
these larger circles in the construction of the present
problem ; more may be necessary in some, none at all in
others.
It will be seen that the portions of the diagonals and
diameters of squares which are cut off between the circles
represent radiating planes, occupying the position of the
spokes of a wheel.
Now let the line A E B, Fig. 69., be the profile of the vase
or cup to be drawn.
Enclose it in the rectangle C D, and if any portion of it
is not curved, as A E. cut off the curved portion by the
vertical line E F, so as to include it in the smaller rectangle
F D.
U 2
294 The Elements of Perspective
Draw the rectangle A c B D in position, and upon it
construct two squares, as they are constructed on the
rectangle A C D in Fig. 68. ; and complete the construction
of Fig. 68., making the radius of its large outer circles
equal to A D, and of its small inner circles equal to A E.
The planes which occupy the position of the wheel-
spokes will then each represent a rectangle of the size of
V D. The construction is shown by the dotted lines in Fig.
69. ; c being the centre of the uppermost circle.
Within each of the smaller rectangles between the circles,
draw the curve E P. in perspective, as in Fig. 69.
E
Fig.
69.
Draw the curve x y, touching and enclosing the curves
in the rectangles, and meeting the upper circle at/.1
Then xy is the contour of the surface of the cup, and the
upper circle is its lip.
If the line xy is long, it may be necessary to draw other
rectangles between the eight principal ones ; and, if the
curve of profile A B is complex or retorted, there may be
several lines corresponding to x y, enclosing the successive
waves of the profile ; and the outer curve will then be an
undulating or broken one.
III. All branched ornamentation, forms of flowers, capi-
tals of columns, machicolations of round towers, and other
1 This point coincides in the figure with the extremity of
the horizontal diameter, but only accidentally.
Appendix
295
such arrangements of radiating curve, are resolvable by this
problem, using more or fewer interior circles according to
the conditions of the curves. Fig. 70. is an example of the
construction of a circular group of eight trefoils with curved
stems. One outer or limiting circle is drawn within the
square E D C F, and the extremities of the trefoils touch it
at the extremities of its diagonals and diameters. A smaller
circle is at the vertical distance B C below the larger, and A
is the angle of the square within which the smaller circle is
drawn ; but the square is not given, to avoid confusion.
The stems of the trefoils form drooping curves, arranged on
the diagonals and diameters of the smaller circle, which are
Fit,. 7a
dotted. But no perspective laws will do work of this
intricate kind so well as the hand and eye of a painter.
IV. There is one common construction, however, in
which, singularly, the hand and eye of the painter almost
always fail, and that is the fillet of any ordinary capital or
base of a circular pillar (or any similar form). It is rarely
necessary in practice to draw such minor details in per-
spective; yet the perspective laws which regulate them
should be understood, else the eye does not see their con-
tours rightly until it is very highly cultivated.
Fig. 71. will show the law with sufficient clearness; it
represents the perspective construction of a fillet whose
profile is a semicircle, such as F H in Fig. 60., seen above
the eye. Only half the pillar with half the fillet is drawn,
to avoid confusion.
Q is the centre of the shaft.
P Q the thickness of the fillet, sight-magnitude at the
shaft's centre.
296 The Elements of Perspective
Round P a horizontal semicircle is drawn on the diameter
of the shaft a b.
Round Q another horizontal semicircle is drawn on dia-
meter c d.
These two semicircles are the upper and lower edges of
the fillet.
Then diagonals and diameters are drawn as in Fig. 68,
and, at their extremities, semicircles in perspective, as in
Fig. 69.
Fig. 71.
The letters A, B, C, D, and E, indicate the upper and
exterior angles of the rectangles in which these semicircles
are to be drawn; but the inner vertical line is not dotted
in the rectangle at C, as it would have confused itself with
other lines.
Then the visible contour of the fillet is the line which
encloses and touches1 all the semicircles. It disappears
1 The engraving is a little inaccurate ; the enclosing line
should touch the dotted semicircles at A and B. The student
should draw it on a large scale.
Appendix 297
behind the shaft at the point H, but I have drawn it through
to the opposite extremity of the diameter at d.
Turned upside down the figure shows the construction
of a basic fillet
The capital of a Greek Doric pillar should be drawn fre-
quently for exercise on this fourteenth problem, the curve
of its echinus being exquisitely subtle, while the general
contour is simple.
PROBLEM XVI
It is often possible to shorten other perspective operations
considerably, by finding the vanishing-points of the inclined
lines of the object. Thus, in drawing the gabled roof in
Fig. 43., if the gable A Y C be drawn in perspective, and the
vanishing-point of A Y determined, it is not necessary to
draw the two sides of the rectangle, a' d' and D' b', in order
to determine the point Y7 ; but merely to draw Y t1 to the
vanishing-point of A a' and a' Y7 to the vanishing-point of
a Y, meeting in Y7, the point required.
Again, if there be a series of gables, or other figures
produced by parallel inclined lines, and retiring to the point
v, as in Fig. 72. J, it is not necessary to draw each separately,
but merely to determine their breadths on the line A v, and
draw the slopes of each to their vanishing-points, as shown
in Fig. 72. Or if the gables are equal in height, and a line
be drawn from Y to v, the construction resolves itself into
a zigzag drawn alternately to P and Q, between the lines Y V
and A v.
The student must be very cautious, in finding the vanish-
ing-points of inclined lines, to notice their relations to the
horizontals beneath them, else he may easily mistake the
horizontal to which they belong.
Thus, let A B c D, Fig. 73., be a rectangular inclined plane,
and let it be required to find the vanishing-point of its
diagonal B D.
Find v, the vanishing-point of A D and B C
Draw a E to the opposite vanishing-point, so that DAE
may represent a right angle.
Let fall from B the vertical B E, cutting A E in E.
Join E D, and produce it to cut the sight-line in v7.
1 The diagram is inaccurately cut. Y V should be a right
line.
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/ / I ////I
,' i I I ! ill
/ / / ' / / ii
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-A- x / /'.';''
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v \ \ < '. '. '. >
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Fir,. 72.
Appendix 299
Then, since the point E is vertically under the point B, the
horizontal line E D is vertically under the inclined line B D.
Fig. 73.
So that if we now let fall the vertical v7 P from v', and
produce B D to cut v' P in P, the point P will be the vanishing-
point of B D, and of all lines parallel to it.1
1 The student may perhaps understand this construction
better by completing the rectangle adfe, drawing D F to the
vanishing-point of A E, and E F to V. The whole figure, B F,
may then be conceived as representing half the gable roof of a
house, A F the rectangle of its base, and A c the rectangle of
its sloping side.
In nearly all picturesque buildings, especially on the Con-
tinent, the slopes of gables are much varied (frequently unequal
on the two sides), and the vanishing-points of their inclined
lines become very important, if accuracy is required in the
intersections of tiling, sides of dormer windows, &c.
Obviously, also, irregular triangles and polygons in vertical
planes may be more easily constructed by finding the vanishing-
points of their sides, than by the construction given in the
corollary to Problem IX. ; and if such triangles or polygons
300 The Elements of Perspective
PROBLEM XVIII
Before examining the last three problems it is necessary
that you should understand accurately what is meant by the
position of an inclined plane.
Cut a piece of strong white pasteboard into any irregular
shape, and dip it in a sloped position into water. However
you hold it, the edge of the water, of course, will always
draw a horizontal line across its surface. The direction of
this horizontal line is the direction of the inclined plane. (In
beds of rock geologists call it their " strike.")
Next, draw a semicircle on the piece of pasteboard ; draw
its diameter, a B, Fig. 74., and a vertical line from its centre,
C D ; and draw some other lines, C E, c F, &c, from the
centre to any points in the circumference.
Now dip the piece of pasteboard again into water, and,
holding it at any inclination and in any direction you choose,
bring the surface of the water to the line A B. Then the line
C D will be the most steeply inclined of all the lines drawn to
the circumference of the circle ; G C and h C will be less
steep ; and E C and F c less steep still. The nearer the lines
to C D, the steeper they will be ; and the nearer to A B, the
more nearly horizontal.
When, therefore, the line A B is horizontal (or marks the
water surface), its direction is the direction of the inclined
plane, and the inclination of the line D c is the inclination of
have others concentrically inscribed within them, as often in
Byzantine mosaics, &c, the use of the vanishing-points will
become essential.
Appendix 301
the inclined plane. In beds of rock geologists call the
inclination of the line D C their "dip."
To fix the position of an inclined plane, therefore, is to
determine the direction of any two lines in the plane, A B and
C D, of which one shall be horizontal and the other at right
angles to it. Then any lines drawn in the inclined plane,
parallel to A B, will be horizontal ; and lines drawn parallel
to C D will be as steep as c D, and are spoken of in the text
as the " steepest lines " in the plane.
But farther, whatever the direction of a plane may be, if it be
extended indefinitely, it will be terminated, to the eye of the
observer, by a boundary line, which, in a horizontal plane, is
horizontal (coinciding nearly with the visible horizon) ; — in
a vertical plane, is vertical ; — and, in an inclined plane, is
inclined.
This line is properly, in each case, called the " sight-line "
of such plane ; but it is only properly called the " horizon "
in the case of a horizontal plane : and I have preferred using
always the term "sight-line," not only because more com-
prehensive, but more accurate ; for though the curvature of
the earth's surface is so slight that practically its visible limit
always coincides with the sight-line of a horizontal plane, it
does not mathematically coincide with it, and the two lines
ought not to be considered as theoretically identical, though
they are so in practice.
It is evident that all vanishing-points of lines in any plane
must be found on its sight-line, and, therefore, that the sight-
line of any plane may be found by joining any two of such
vanishing-points. Hence the construction of Problem XVIII.
II
DEMONSTRATIONS WHICH COULD NOT
CONVENIENTLY BE INCLUDED IN
THE TEXT
THE SECOND COROLLARY, PROBLEM II
In Fig. 8. omit the lines C D, c' D', and D S ; and, as here
in Fig. 75., from a draw a d parallel to A B, cutting B T in d;
and from d draw d e parallel to B C.
Now as a d\s parallel to A B —
A c : a c : : B c' : d e ;
but A c is equal to B C —
.'. a c = d c.
302
Appendix 303
Now because the triangles a c\, b J v, are similar —
ac: b <? : : a v : b\ ;
and because the triangles d e T, b cf T are similar —
de : b J : : </t : £ t.
But a c is equal to d e —
;. a\ : bv : : dr : bT;
.*. the two triangles a b d, b T v, are similar, and their angles
are alternate ;
.". T V is parallel to a d
But a d is parallel to A B —
.'. T v is parallel to A R.
II
THE THIRD COROLLARY, PROBLEM III
Ix Fig. 13., since a R is by construction parallel to A B in
Fig. 12., and T v is by construction in Problem III. also
parallel to A B —
.'. a R is parallel to T V,
.". a b R and T b v are alternate triangles,
.'. a R : T V : : a b : b V.
Again, by the construction of Fig. 13., a R' is parallel to
M v —
.". a b R' and If b V are alternate triangles,
.". a R' : m v : : a b : b V.
And it has just been shown that also
a R : x v : : a b : b V —
.*. a r' : M v : : a R : T V.
But by construction, a R'=a R -
" M v=T v
III
ANALYSIS OF PROBLEM XV
We proceed to take up the general condition of the second
problem, before left unexamined, namely, that in which the
vertical distances B c' and A c (Fig. 6. page 222.}, as well as
the direct distances T D and T d' are unequal.
In Fig. 6., here repeated (Fig. 76.), produce C' B down-
wards, and make c' E equal to c A.
304 The Elements of Perspective
Join A E.
Then, by the second Corollary of Problem II., a e is a
horizontal line.
Draw t v parallel to a E, cutting the sight-line in v.
.'.v is the vanishing-point of a e.
Corolla? thC constructions of Problem II. and its second
Then by Problem II. a b is the line A B drawn in per-
spective ; and by its Corollary a e is the line A E drawn in
perspective.
From v erect perpendicular v p, and produce a b to cut it
in P.
Join T P, and from e draw <?/ parallel to A E, and cutting
A T in f. S
Now in triangles EBl and AET,as^ is parallel to E B
and c /to A E ; — e b : ef : : E B : A E.
But T v is also parallel to A E and P v to e b.
Therefore also in the triangles apv and a V T,
e b : e f : : p v : v T.
Therefore PV:vt::eb:ae.
And, by construction, angle T v p= angle A E B.
Therefore the triangles T v p, a e b, are similar; and T P
is parallel to A B.
Appendix 305
Now the construction in this problem is entirely general
for any inclined line A B, and a horizontal line A E in the
same vertical plane with it.
So that if we find the vanishing-point of A E in v, and
from v erect a vertical V P, and from T draw T P parallel to
A B, cutting v P in P, P will be the vanishing-point of A B, and
(by the same proof as that given at page 226.) of all lines
parallel to it.
Next, to find the dividing-point of the inclined line.
Fig. 77.
I remove some unnecessary lines from the last figure and
repeat it here, Fig. 77., adding the measuring-line a M, that
the student may observe its position with respect to the other
lines before I remove any more of them.
Now if the line A B in this diagram represented the length
of the line A B in reality (as A B does in Figs. 10. and 1 1.), we
should only have to proceed to modify Corollary III. of
Problem 1 1, to this new construction. We shall see presently
that A B does not represent the actual length of the inclined
line A B in nature, nevertheless we shall first proceed as if it
did, and modify our result afterwards.
306 The Elements of Perspective
In Fig. 77. draw a d parallel to A B, cutting B T in d.
Therefore a d is the sight-magnitude of A B, as a R is of
A B in Fig. 11.
Remove again from the figure all lines except P v, v T, P T,
a b, a d, and the measuring-line.
Set off on the measuring-line a ?n equal to a d.
Draw P Q parallel to a m, and through bdraw m Q, cutting
P Q in Q.
Then, by the proof already given in pages 230. and 303.,
P Q = P T.
Therefore if P is the vanishing-point of an inclined line A B,
and Q P is a horizontal line drawn through it, make P Q equal
to p T, and a m on the measuring-line equal to the sight-
magnitude of the line A B in the diagram, and the line
joining m Q will cut a P in b.
We have now, therefore, to consider what relation the
length of the line A B in this diagram, Fig. 77., has to the
length of the line A B in reality.
Now the line A E in Fig. 77. represents the length of a e
in reality.
But the angle A E B, Fig. 77., and the corresponding angle
Appendix 307
in all the constructions of the earlier problems, is in reality
a right angle, though in the diagram necessarily represented
as obtuse.
Therefore, if from E we draw E C, as in Fig. 79., at right
angles to A E, make E C = E B, and
join A c, A c will be the real length of
the line A B.
Now, therefore, if instead of a m in
Fig. 78., we take the real length of
A B, that real length will be to a m as
A C to A B in Fig. 79.
And then, if the line drawn to the
measuring-line P Q is still to cut a P
in 6, it is evident that the line P Q
must be shortened in the same ratio
that a m was shortened ; and the true G- ?9-
dividing-point will be Q' in Fig. 80.,
fixed so that Q' p shall be to Q P as a in is to a m ; a m
representing the real length of A B.
But a m is therefore to a m as A C is to A B in Fig. 79.
Therefore P Q' must be to P Q as A C is to A B.
But P Q equals P T (Fig. 78.) ; and P v is to v T (in Fig.
78.) as B E is to A E (Fig. 79.).
Hence we have only to substitute P v for E C, and v T for
A E, in Fig. 79 . and the resulting diagonal A C will be the
required length of P Q'.
It will be seen that the construction given in the text
308 The Elements of Perspective
(Fig. 46.) is the simplest means of obtaining this magnitude,
for v D in Fig. 46. (or v M in Fig. I5.) = v T by construction
in Problem IV. It should, however, be observed, that the
distance P D or P x, in Fig. 46., may be laid on the sight-line
of the inclined plane itself, if the measuring-line be drawn
parallel to that sight-line. And thus any form may be
drawn on an inclined plane as conveniently as on a horizontal
one, with the single exception of the radiation of the verticals,
which have a vanishing-point, as shown in Problem XX.
INDEX
TO
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING
" Aerial Perspective," 139
Art, coarse, its inferiority, 14 ; not
perfect if depending on visible lines,
81 ; excellence of, dependent on
expression of the individuality of
natural objects, 99 ; of painting, in
what it consists, 4 (note)
Artists, list of those whose works are
to be studied, 195-201
Background, to be drawn exactly as
seen, 45
Banks, their beauty, 89
Bewick, 199
Black, rightly to be made conspicuous,
'33. 134
Blake, 199
Body-colour drawing, 1 17-120
Boldness, not to be aimed at by the
beginner, 29, 141
Books, what to read, 202-204
Boughs, ramification of, 73 ; individu-
ality of, 169 ; limitation of, 169
Branches, structure of, 164
Bridge, ideal construction of, 153, 154
Caraco, conventionalism of, 102
Chiaroscuro, the masters of, 57 ; its
importance in water painting, 106
Clouds, best introduction to draw-
ing of, 38 ; 109, 1 10 ; mistakes of
ordinary artists in drawing, no;
their sculptured form, no, in ;
how to sketch the lighter wreaths
of, in ; as drawn by Turner, Titian
and Tiutoret, 112
Colour, cause of, 4 (note) ; smooth,
how to produce, 5-7 ; depth of,
represented by depth of shade, 19 ",
relation of, to shade, 24, 25 ; scales
of, how to prepare, 24, 25 ; cast
back by objects in reflected light,
33 ; of water, 107, 108 ; relativeness
of, 113; importance of, in comparison
with form, 115 ; relative merits of
transparent and opaque n 7-120;
gradations in, 126-128 ; how ob-
tained, 120 ff.; in nature, 123, 133,
136 ; colour power a sign of mental
health, 136 ; its relation to form,
137 ; how expressive of distances,
137-139 ; how best to obtain harmony
of, 186
Composition, 141 ff ; law of principal-
ity, 144-147 ; of repetition, 147-150 ;
of continuity, 150-155; of curvature,
155-161 ; of radiation, 161-173 ; of
contrast, 173-179 ; of interchange,
170-180 ; of consistency, 180-183 ;
of harmony, 183-193
Confusion. See Nature
Consistency, law of, 180-183
Continuity, law of, 150-155
Contrast, law of, 173-179
Coreggio, 117, 176
Cracks or fissures, how expressible,
3L 32, 35
Cruikshank, his etchings, 58, 187, see
Appendix
Curvature, law of, 155-161
Curves, of shore, necessity of right
drawing of, 105 ; necessary of, to
good composition, 157
Detail, cannot be expressed in draw-
ing as it is in reality, 44
Distance, how expressed by colour,
137-139
Drapery, difficulty of drawing, 37
Drawing, good, an abstract of natural
facts, 183
Durer, his perfection of chiaroscuro,
57, 59. 64, 66
Economy of execution, as shown in
the work of great masters, 61
Engraving, more difficult than common
drawing, 56
Execution, how to distinguish that of
the great masters, 61 ; habit of, op-
posed to true drawing of detail, 99
Eye, " innocence of," 3 (note) ; how to
obtain accuracy of, 8, 9
Flatness, nowhere found in the
natural world, 27 ; tendency towards
in fine drawing and painting, 44
Foliage, important element in effect of,
52 ; in the works of Harding, 92, 93 ;
radiation and enclosure of, 93 ; as
drawn by Turner, 101 ; by Titian, 102
Foreground, bad in all engravings, 56
Form, perception of, 3 (note) ; ex-
pression of, on what it depends, 10 ;
refinement of, difficulty of obtaining,
29; how expresseJ by Nature, 31 ;
309
3io
Index
more gained by drawing of, than
labouring at texture, 36 ; expressed
by colour, 36 ; how expressed by
great artists, 43 ; vital facts of,
70 ff. ; absoluteness of, 113; dis-
guised by colour, 137
Freedom, error of aiming at, 9
French art, 184 (note)
Gainsborough, his foliage, 96
Gradation of colour, difficulty of
obtaining evenness of, 29 ; round-
ness and projection expressed by,
36 ; how to obtain, 40-42, 120 ff. ;
in Nature, 126 ; beauty of, 127 ;
universality of law of, 133
Ground-surface, linear expression of,
109
Hand, lightness of, required for
shading, 8
Harding, J. D., foliage by, 92 ; its
excellences and shortcomings, 90
Harmony, law of, 183-193 ; how best
obtained, 186
Hunt, Holman, 116
Hunt, William, 42, 132
I.vitation, to be aimed at as far as
possible, 60
India-.ubber, use of, 8 (note), 12
Individuality of natural objects as
opposed to general law, 95, 96, 97 ;
excellence of art dependent on ex-
pression of, 99 ; of boughs, 169
Inimitableness of natural objects, 52,
69
Interchange, law of, 179-1S0
Landscape drawing, three main laws
to be considered in regard to, 95, 96
Leaves, how to draw, 45 ff. ; fore-
shortening of, 46 ; lustre of, 51 ;
causes of form of, being altered and
hidden, 52 ; structure of, 92, 93 ;
individual caprice of, as opposed to
general law, 94 ; radiation of, 162
Leech, woodcuts of, in " Punch," 58
Lewis, John, n6, see Appendix
Light, reflected, 33 ; receives colour
from objects from which cast, 33 ;
neutrality of, 33
Lines, difficulty of drawing them well
slowly, 9 ; straight, great draughts-
men unable to draw, 15, 16 (note) ;
rules for direction of, 59, 60 ;
Straight, used for shading, 61 ;
leading or governing, importance of,
70 ; two kinds of harmonies of, 161
Lustre, of leaves, 51 ; a defect in
painting, 118
Memoranda, usefulness of, 85, 86
Mulready, 116
Mystery of foliage, 66 ; of other
natural objects, 96, 100 ; as shown
by Turner, 101
Natural objects, inimitableness of,
52 ; mystery concealing, 96
Nature, character of confusion of, 47,
48 ; how to express, 49 ff., 66-68 ;
mystery of 96 ; colours in, 123, 133,
136 ; gradation of colours in, 126 ;
symmetry in, 149
Neutrality of reflected light, 33
Outline, more or less interrupted in
good work, 62 ; false and true, 62,
63 ; for what purposes to be used,
64 ; to what objects to be confined,
65
Painting, technical powers of, 3
(note) ; art of, in what it consists, 4
(note)
Paper, colour and quality to be used,
110
Patterns, drawing of, good exercise
for gaining perception of tint, etc.,
37. 38 .
Perspective, aerial, 139
Perugino, Madonna of, 150
Pigments to be used in water-colour
drawing, 116 ff.
Power, only gained by care, 29
Preciousness of colour, how obtained,
135 .
Precision, less danger for amateurs in,
than in vagueness, 58
Principality, law of, 144-147
Projection, expressed by gradation, 36 ;
impossible to show, 44 ; deceptively
produced by partial exaggeration of
shadow, 44
Prout. his "St. Nicholas," 172; his
principles of composition, 180, see
Appendix
Radiation, of foliage, 93 ; lawof, 161-
173 ; beauty of groups of form
dependent on, 170
Raphael, his hesd of Angel ; 63, his
'" St. Catherine," 82 ; his " Disputa,"
146
Reflection, law of, 106 ; colour of, 107,
108
Rembrandt, his precision of line, 57 ;
his perfection in chiaroscuro, 57
Repetition, law of, 147-150
Rethel, 58, see Appendix
Retsch, 62, 200
Richter, 58 ; illustrations by, 187,
see Appendix
Index
3ii
Rivers, general character of, 152
Rossetti, 116, see Appendix
Roundness, drawing dependent on
power of representing, 27 ; expressed
by gradation, 36
Salvator Rosa, his foliage, 96
Scales of colour, how to prepare, 24,
25 ; principle underlying 26
Shade, gradation of, with pen, 10-T2 ;
with pencil, 12-14 \ depth of.colour
represented by depth of, 19 ; good
work more or less touched with, 62
Shadow, generally darker than dark
side of object, 34-35 ; impossibility
of getting all the gradations of, seen
in Nature, 43 ; value lent to objects
by their, 86 ; colouring of, 134^
Shore, curves of, 105 ; perspective of,
107
Sight, keenness of, required for shad-
ing, 8
Sketching from Nature, what to
choose, and what to avoid for sub-
ject, 87-91
Sky, difficulty of drawing, as com-
pared to earth subject, 109, no;
inimitable brilliancy of, 123
Solids, illuminated, how generally
seen, 32, 33 ; colour of, 34
Stone, how to draw a, 26, 29, 32 ;
colours of, ro7
Subjects, most suitable for drawing,
87 ff.
Surface, lustrous, expression of, 38 ;
how expressed by Rethel and Rich-
ter, 58 ; softness of, of trees, 103
Symmetry in Nature, 149
Texture, chief points to study in the
drawing of, 38 ; how expressed by
Leech, 58
Tinting, 8r ; unity of, with line, 82
Tintoret, 9 (note) ; drawing of clouds
by, ri2 ; 118. 172
Titian, 47 ; drawing of foliage by, 102 ;
ofrloudsby, 112; 146, 172
Translucency, beauty of, ri8 (note)
Transparent colour drawing, 117 ;
relative merits of, as compared with
body colour drawing, 1 17 ff.
Trees, boughs of, dark against the
sky, 17 ; how to learn to draw,
17-T9 ; further study of, 45 ; struc-
ture of, 71-73 ; their softness of sur-
face, 103 ; good and bad drawing of,
'59 I perfect type of structure, 162,
163 ; four great laws of structure,
r68, 160
Turner, drawings by, 53, 54, 74, 77,
78, ioi, 146, 147, 148, rsr, 156, 172,
177, 189, 190 ; foliage, clouds, moon-
light by, 55 ; his use of shadow,
85 : mystery of nature expressed by,
101 ; drawing of clouds by, 112 ; his
colours, 116 ; his gradation of colour,
r28
Unity, organic, of natural objects, 95
Vagueness, to be avoided by
amateurs. 58
Vegetable form, radiation of, 162 ; ex-
pression of four great laws by, 168
Velasquez, 134
Veronese, 9 (note), 118, 125, 126, 146,
172
Water, reflections in, 104 ; necessity
of careful drawing of lines of dis-
turbance on surface of, 104, 105 ;
colour of, 107, 108
Water-colour drawing, how to mix
and lay on a flat tint, 20-23 ! a
gradated one, 23-24 ; gradated
scales of colour, 24,23; materials
to be used for, 116 tt.: processes by
which gradation and other characters
are to be obtained, 120 ff.
White, preciousness of, 133
White objects, how to treat, 44 ; how
treated by Veronese and Titian, 44 ;
by Turner, 44 (note)
Wilson, his drawing of trees, 73
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